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Keeping it simple...the old Aifix JP3


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Keeping it simple...old Airfix JP3

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I despair about how long it takes to finish a model. It seems to me that most kits are on the workbench for 3 or 4 months or so before they begin to look like the aircraft I intended. There must be a quicker way!

With this in mind I set out to see if I could finish something within a week. The result was that no – I couldn’t – but this one only took 10 days so it felt like a victory of some kind.

I chose something simple and they don’t come much simpler than the old Airfix Jet Provost T3. Bearing in mind a new JP3 from Airfix is just around the corner it seemed a good time to build one of those old ones that had been lurking in the attic for more years than I care to remember. I had also just finished its piston engine brother in the form of the new S&M kit so it kind of made sense on a number of levels.

Anyway, here it is. I had intended an OOB affair (or in this case OOPB = Out Of Plastic Bag). I must admit I couldn’t help but change the ejection seats and add just a little bit of scribed detail on the fuselage top, and of course I found some new decals, but other than that it is just about original including working ailerons!

Models%20JP3%20CFS%20002.jpg

I could have done a ‘silver with yellow T bands’ job, but I found a picture of some very early CFS JP3s which still had that leading edge root fillet that Airfix provided, so I went with one of these. I chose XM361 mainly because I had some spare Lightning decals for XM139 for which the serials were exactly the same size as a JP3. All the other decals were from good old Modeldecal sheets apart from the ejection seat triangles and fire panels.

Had I not chosen a dayglo machine (white undercoat, followed by gloss orange, followed by two coats of fluorescent orange) I might have had it finished in the week, but of course the real timescale is set by the rest of life that goes on regardless of us modellers!

Models%20JP3%20CFS%20003.jpg

Models%20JP3%20CFS%20004.jpg

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Models%20JP3%20CFS%20008.jpg

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I think for ten days work, your result is very pleasing. An old kit like this needs care and attention as they don't go together too easily. Congratulations on the result.

Colin

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Ten days? Pah! I would have knocked that out while watching the Avengers back in 1965...and next day shot it to pieces with my air gun in the back garden.

Joking apart, nice job with an ancient kit and you really have got that dayglo painting licked. Nice one.

Nige B

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Ten days? Pah! I would have knocked that out while watching the Avengers back in 1965...and next day shot it to pieces with my air gun in the back garden.

Joking apart, nice job with an ancient kit and you really have got that dayglo painting licked. Nice one.

Nige B

...or burn holes in it with a magnifying glass and stick a banger up the jet pipe.

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...or burn holes in it with a magnifying glass and stick a banger up the jet pipe.

In the country we used Rookies (Rook scarers) Put 1 in the airfix victorious once and put on the farm pond it it was literly blown to bits

Rodders

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Very nice model from what I seem to recall was a fairly indifferent kit at the time, Built one in my youth and have one in the stash, although I do not think it will ever get built now as I have the CMK resin version i picked up cheap from the last Telford I went to, especially with the new one from Airfix.

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Amazing what you've achieved with this old kit. It looks great and has inspired me to build my one, which I was thinking of selling in light if the new Airfix one. The reason I've been put off was because the only photo I've seen of a JP with the root extensions was the one-off Mk2. Now I know that some Mk3s had them I shall build it after all. I'll still be getting the new Airfix one, mind.

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Hello Meatbox - attached is a photo of CFS JP3s all with root extensions. they are XM360/R-E, XM355/R-A and XM361/R-F. Based at Little Rissington in 1960.

I have another old Airfix JP3 underway with root extensions removed to do the silver with strip red dayglo scheme, but I will also get one or two of the new Airfix kit.

CFS2.jpg

Amazing what you've achieved with this old kit. It looks great and has inspired me to build my one, which I was thinking of selling in light if the new Airfix one. The reason I've been put off was because the only photo I've seen of a JP with the root extensions was the one-off Mk2. Now I know that some Mk3s had them I shall build it after all. I'll still be getting the new Airfix one, mind.

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