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Fairey Battle kits


Brandy

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If the good lord up above is a closet modeller, you just might be in luck at about 10:01 GMT today?? 

So fingers crossed and start praying like mad.. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

 

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7 hours ago, Rabbit Leader said:

If the good lord up above is a closet modeller, you just might be in luck at about 10:01 GMT today?? 

 

So fingers crossed and and start praying like mad.. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

 

No new 1/72 tooling announcements at all, just the previously announced Welly and some tool/decal variants. Only new tooling announcement was the 1/48 Hunter (although there was an erroneous comment about a 1/48 Spit XIV in the original intro blurb, since edited and apologized for)

Edited by Adam Maas
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16 hours ago, limeypilot said:

Are there any decent Fairey Battle kits out there in 1:72? I've tried to find an MPM one, but they seem akin to hen's teeth......

 

Ian

MPM did 3 variants of the Battle, Mk1, Trainer and Target Tug. The only other alternative is various issues of the Airfix kit (Bilek/SK).

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Yes, but the man did ask for decent kits, which the Airfix isn't, really.

 

Paul Lloyd, I believe, produce a set of drawings showing/arguing that the MPM kit was too long in the fuselage.  I put a lot of effort into shortening an MPM kit before coming to the conclusion (as apparently everyone else had done before me) that he was wrong.  if anyone remembers this, do they have any opinions either way?

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39 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

Yes, but the man did ask for decent kits, which the Airfix isn't, really.

Agreed Graham; and whilst the MPM kit has more detail and appears to be more accurate, it's no walk in the park building it either.

I was merely pointing out that in 1/72nd scale, for an injection moulded kit, those are the only options.

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2 hours ago, Dave Swindell said:

Agreed Graham; and whilst the MPM kit has more detail and appears to be more accurate, it's no walk in the park building it either.

I was merely pointing out that in 1/72nd scale, for an injection moulded kit, those are the only options.

I think I recall Maintrack or Flightpath doing a resin fuselage for the 1/72 Airfix Battle, but it  would be long OOP, I fear. I think I used to have it- will check my resin inventory when I get a chance....can't speak for the accuracy of the resin, though. Airfix would be remiss if they didn't do a new-tool in 1/72 as well as 1/48.

Mike

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You will also need replacement wings.  The fuselage is the lesser problem, as I recall.

 

One key problem with that vintage of MPM kits is that the person who decided to tool the interiors did not allow for the thickness of the fuselage halves.  Correcting this is tedious.

 

Whilst agreeing that a new 1/72 Battle from Airfix would be welcomed I'm not sure that it sits very high in Airfix's hit list, even before their current financial restrictions.

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Not sure about the length of the fuselage, but the MPM Battle had a lot of issues (Many of which it shared with it's bigger brother, the Classic Airframes one). been a long time since I looked at one and tossed it to the back of the garage, but from memory the chord of the wing was wrong, along with the ange of the trailing edge. The nose was off as well, and whilst not as bad a s Airfix, the canopy was wrong too

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That's what I feared, thanks all. Maybe another massive correction build on the cards sometime then, if I can find decent plans.

 

Ian

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Scale Models International had what appeared to be quite decent plans sometime back in 70s or 80s, I'll look mine out & let you know which issue it was. I could scan them but I reckon the scanning & printing would be likely to introduce inaccuracies.

Steve.

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2 minutes ago, stevehnz said:

Scale Models International had what appeared to be quite decent plans sometime back in 70s or 80s, I'll look mine out & let you know which issue it was. I could scan them but I reckon the scanning & printing would be likely to introduce inaccuracies.

Steve.

If you scan them with a ruler in the scan I'll have a reference to use to ensure I print them at the correct scale.

 

Ian

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dalea:  My comment on the wings was directed at the Airfix kit - I'm sure that you've seen many comments directed at those.  They did have the benefit of being easier to convert to a Fulmar, in the days when such a thing was necessary.  However, I'm surprised to see Dave's comments on the MPM wings.  Have you compared the MPM wings with the plans - or indeed the fuselage overall length?

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Have dug out my file. Firstly the Valiant Wings nose was intended for the Airfix Kit. My apologies.

Ian D Huntly's own plans  appeared in 'Aircraft Illustrated' March 1974, but they were not to 1/72 scale.

Richard J Caruana's plans appeared in 'Scale Aviation Modeller International' in June 2001 and reappear in the 'Aviation Guide' dated 2004'

Placing the MPM plastic over the plans, I find the wing matches almost exactly. the length of the fuselage is  spot on , as is the tail plane span. As too the fit of the resin interior and the thickness and profile of the canopy, I haven't yet checked. 

How accurate are the Caruana plans?

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The simple answer is that we don't know, or at least I don't.  Richard Caruana is an excellent and highly prolific artist and contributor to many publications.  However , like many prolific/professional workers, he has to be limited in the time given to each subject, so does tend to rely upon previously published data which can be dodgy.  So my personal opinion is admire his work but not to rely upon it without independent verification  - and check that.

 

Ian Huntley did produce a specialist work on the Battle more recently, which I suspect is the one you mention, but I don't think that it included plans.  Perhaps I should dig it out to confirm that.  As Ian did work for Fairey, and was well aware of the problems with the Airfix kit, I would expect his plans to be very reliable.  So if you have a copy of that issue of AI, take them to a professional printer and get them rescaled.  Something else I could dig out whilst I'm at it...but my two favourite local printers have gone out of business.  Or just use the ones in his Aviation Guide.  I'm a little surprised that I haven't used them to settle the matter myself, but perhaps the kit had already been placed on a back shelf and ignored.

Edited by Graham Boak
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there's a few on the usual bidding site today.

An airfix version currently sits at $1.25 and is due to finish tomorrow.  There's also a 1/72 version from a company called Bilek which is listed at $21 (with free shipping), but are also accepting offers

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