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De Havilland Vampire F.3


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As 2018 draws to a close, I thought I'd give you the 'heads-up' for the first aircraft build of 2019.

Originally, I bought this kit with the intention of building an FB.5 and got a decal set for it. Me being the 'numpty, I had completely forgotten that I already had one two FB.5 kits in the stash, so this will be an OOB effort with some PE thrown in.

 

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The box.

 

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The PE.

 

I'm not a nuts n' bolts man but is there anything drastically wrong with this kit as an F.3?

 

Stuart

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Hello Stuart !

Now, that's agreat idea ! I look forward for this build.

I must confess that I'm not a great specialist of the Vampire...

I have 6 Hobbycraft ones.... And a Special Hobby... And some weird ideas in my distorted mind....

I will have a look and keep you in touch !

Whatever, it's a great idea !

Sincerely.

CC

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Ha! I have this kit, and was even thinking of doing it as my next build so I'll be following this with great interest. I've heard mixed reports about it as a kit - some think it's great and others not so much. I'm sure it will be fine in your hands though. Accuracy wise, I think it's okay - you can build a mk3 or a mk5.

 

I've got a heap of reference photos of a mk5 taken from the local airforce museum which you can access here. The cockpit shots are from a T11 but from a similar era so might be of some help. 

 

 

Edited by Kitchen Modeller
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Cheers for the quick response guys.

49 minutes ago, corsaircorp said:

I must confess that I'm not a great specialist of the Vampire...

I have 6 Hobbycraft ones.... And a Special Hobby... And some weird ideas in my distorted mind....

I'm no specialist either. I tend to a little bit of a lot of things. The 2 in my stash are 1/72 Xtrakits, one of the FB.5 may turn into a Mk9 with another scheme??

37 minutes ago, Kitchen Modeller said:

I've got a heap of reference photos of a mk5 taken from the local airforce museum which you can access here. The cockpit shots are from a T11 but from a similar era so might be of some help. 

Bookmarked, cheers.

 

Stuart

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi all. I thought I'd start this while I'm waiting for other bits...nice and easy start.

 

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Grabbed the parts for steps 1-4 in the instructions. These few parts required little cleaning and test fitting was to show we were a go! The cockpit rear bulkhead has been fitted, as has the i/p. I was going to fit PE to this bird but due to the fact I have others in the stash that will be static on the ground, this will be an in-flight job. I've never built an aircraft drone and don't intend to start now, so I grabbed a suitable pilot from an Airfix Sabre kit and 'modified' him so that he can take his place in the 'pit' although I don't think he'll be able to do much with no legs.

 

Stuart

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Hi

This is very interesting.

I am currently building one SNCASE Mistral and four DH Vampire from FRROM & Special Hobby which is the same manufacturer.

The fact is I started building the Mistral and one Vampire and finaly I started all of them from my stash.

So there will be 1 Mistral, 2 Mk I, 1 Mk 3 and 1 FB5.

I am likely crazy.

 

Patrick

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Will watch this with interest as my copy moves to the top of the build pile as I want a few straightforward kits to build at present as life is a little complicated at the minute with very regular trips to the Scottish borders as we are reaching the stage where my mum is going to need 24 hour care. 

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2 hours ago, VG 33 said:

I am likely crazy.

It helps to be a little crazy in this game, makes life interesting.

53 minutes ago, Mr T said:

Will watch this with interest as my copy moves to the top of the build pile

Welcome aboard Mr T. Build piles are very interesting things, they're like a box of 'snakes and ladders', kits they move up and down. :rofl:

Sorry to hear of your mum, 'simple' OOB builds are good therapy.

 

Stuart

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On 20/12/2018 at 14:29, Courageous said:

I'm not a nuts n' bolts man but is there anything drastically wrong with this kit as an F.3?

 

I'm pretty sure your Revell kit is a re-box of the recent Special Hobby kit. Looks that way to me from your photos. I believe the consensus is that it's a pretty good kit of the Vampire. I'll be following along as I have this and the Mk.I in my stash.    :popcorn:

 

Cheers,

Bill

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It is a re-box, but a bit cheaper. My understanding of the kit is that the wing chord is to great, although I am not that sure how noticeable this is looking at the ones I have seen built up. 

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A tiny update for you guys.

 

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A view of the 'dude' in his seat, him and his stick are not fixed yet...later.

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A view of the dude's shoulder looking at the decal i/p. It's not silvering if you are wondering, just a trick of light.

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Internal assemblies fitted.

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Looking into the hole, not too bad. Gun sight to be fitted later...so I don't lose it.

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All done up and waiting to dry before whacking the nose on and tidying those seems up. 

 

Stuart

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Nice start Stu' gotta love the Vampire, easily one of the most colourful jets.  One thing though, I think the cockpit floor should be black too.

 

I shall be following with interest.

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8 minutes ago, Massimo said:

Nice start Stuart!!!:like:

Cheers Massimo, welcome aboard.

4 minutes ago, Wez said:

Nice start Stu' gotta love the Vampire, easily one of the most colourful jets.  One thing though, I think the cockpit floor should be black too.

Cheers Wez and welcome aboard. You may very well be right about the floor colour but as this is going onto the ceiling with a 'jockey' in the hole, no floor will be seen...I'll get it right for when I do the FB.5 (when ever that is)

 

Stuart

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7 minutes ago, Courageous said:

Cheers Wez and welcome aboard. You may very well be right about the floor colour but as this is going onto the ceiling with a 'jockey' in the hole, no floor will be seen...I'll get it right for when I do the FB.5 (when ever that is)

No worries, now you've got it all closed up I doubt very much can be seen anyway.

 

There's some interesting lumps and bumps on the underside of the kit which I don't think should be there for an RAF jet, it would be worth checking some photos (I might have a peruse through Cold War Shield 2 later...).

 

I've also read that the tailpipe can look a bit oval so other modellers may want to watch that and address that for a model  that isn't going to be on the ceiling.

Edited by Wez
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As the studying wasn't going so well I decided my time would be better spent taking a look through CWS2.

 

On the kit, there's a fairing (about 3 x 1.5 x 1 mm), on the fuselage underside just aft of the nose wheel bay and immediately forward of the gun-bay access panels, it's not there in any of the pictures of RAF Vampires in CWS2, I guess it may have been on Swiss Vampires so I would suggest removing it on an RAF jet.

 

Interestingly, in the walkround linked by @Kitchen Modeller the subject aircraft has long fairings for the ammunition links I'd never seen before, obviously there was a problem with them not clearing the aircraft properly when the guns were fired and can be seen here.  These are not evident on any RAF aircraft so I'm guessing they were a later modification on export aircraft.  The parts aren't there in the kit anyway so I wouldn't consider adding them for an RAF build but it's obviously something to watch out when building an export jet.

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20 hours ago, Wez said:

On the kit, there's a fairing (about 3 x 1.5 x 1 mm), on the fuselage underside just aft of the nose wheel bay and immediately forward of the gun-bay access panels, it's not there in any of the pictures of RAF Vampires in CWS2, I guess it may have been on Swiss Vampires so I would suggest removing it on an RAF jet.

Cheers Wez. I do have CWS2 myself, can you tell me the page that you are referring to, don't want to cut the wrong bit off?!

 

Stuart

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1 minute ago, Courageous said:

Cheers Wez. I do have CWS2 myself, can you tell me the page that you are referring to, don't want to cut the wrong bit off?!

 

Stuart

Hi Stuart,

 

Happy New Year to you.

 

It's not in CWS2 , that's the point really, it is on the kit though, it would be easier to show you what you need to take off from the kit.

 

I',m just about to do some stuff in the garden but will post a picture later.

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Stuart,

 

The fairing highlighted is in all versions of the kit I have (Mk.1/3/5 and Mistral):

 

SH_Kit_fairing

 

Looking through CWS2, I can't see any such fairing on the underside of any of the Vampires of any mark.  If you follow this link to the NZ Vampire walkround, you can just make out a small panel in this position but it is flush with the skin surface.  If it was my kit I'd remove this fairing and sand it flush but the choice is yours.

 

Hope this helps.

Edited by Wez
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I little further down the road with the F.3

 

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Wing halves have been cemented together as are the booms. Generally the parts were a good fit but the trailing edge of the wings were a little thick and could've been a little thinner. And while parts were curing the air intakes, wheel well doors, wing tips and horizontal stabilizer were cleaned up.

 

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The clear wing tips were fitted to wings. Not sure if I like this idea as it depends how the nav lights look on the real thing; if they have coloured covers then this is ok but if they a coloured lamps, it's a no-no as you'll have to gain access some how with your drill. Air intakes fitted to the wings and horizontal stabilizer fitted to booms and the lot pushed together until things dry.

That's it for now.

 

Stuart

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1 hour ago, Kitchen Modeller said:

Looking good Stuart - looks like a little filler might be required...

Cheers KM. Although the wings and booms are not glued together yet, I do foresee the use of a little filler...it's not an Eduard kit ya knows.

 

Stuart

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