New Airfix 1/350 scale HMS Queen Elizabeth

[Meatbox8]

Well, if Airfix are reading this. I for one would love a kit of the QE Class.  I'm probably more likely to go for a 1/700 scale kit just because I don't think I'd have room for a 1/350 (not that I wouldn't really want one, mind you). 

[Paul H]

17 minutes ago, RussellE said:

I think 1/350 and 1/700 are the scales for ships these days. Whilst 1/600 was historically Airfix's naval scale, a modern kit of a RN vessel would do well to be in 1/700 for compatibility with kits of other modern navies from other manufacturers.

 

Having said that, Airfix have forayed into 1/700 already in the form of their release of the Titanic.

 

What would be interesting and probably a popular move would be for Airfix to release the QE/POW in both 1/350 and 1/700 scales and further on down the track bolster the range with the Type 26 and 31 Frigates in both scales. They could also re-introduce their Type 45 DD to bolster the range.

Fully agree with 1:700 being vastly preferable to 1:600 for compatability & thus a wider audience.  However isn't the the Airfix 1:700 RMS Titanic simply a re-boxed Academy kit?  Strangely, Revell's recent snap kit one is 1:600, despite their regular glue kit Olympic & Titanic being 1:700, but not aware of any other newly tooled 1:600 ships.

 

At 1:350, QE / PoW works out as 800mm - the only other 1:350 kit that I know of that is larger is the Tamiya USS Enterprise.  However, as there is a range of 1:200 WW2 battleships that seem to be growing, hopefully there is the market in 1:350 for a model of that size.  Btw, have Airfix produced any other ships in 1:350 ship apart from the Type 45?

[davecov]

Airfix produced HMS Illustrious and the Trafalgar Class Submarine to 1/350 scale.

 

Dave

[RussellE]

28 minutes ago, davecov said:

To give you a good idea of the size of a 1/350 QE carrier, here are two pictures showing my 2014 1/350 HMS Queen Elizabeth build alongside the Airfix 1/350 HMS Daring.

 

Dave

Holy Moley! Be Still my beating heart! What a centre piece that would make! But! This clearly illustrates why Airfix should offer a 1/700 kit first and only proceed to 1/350 as a hero kit, much in the same vein as their 1/24 a/c kits later on.

26 minutes ago, Meatbox8 said:

Well, if Airfix are reading this. I for one would love a kit of the QE Class.  I'm probably more likely to go for a 1/700 scale kit just because I don't think I'd have room for a 1/350 (not that I wouldn't really want one, mind you). 

As Dave's picture perfectly illustrates just how big the 1/350 would be...

23 minutes ago, Paul H said:

Fully agree with 1:700 being vastly preferable to 1:600 for compatability & thus a wider audience.  However isn't the the Airfix 1:700 RMS Titanic simply a re-boxed Academy kit?  Strangely, Revell's recent snap kit one is 1:600, despite their regular glue kit Olympic & Titanic being 1:700, but not aware of any other newly tooled 1:600 ships.

 

At 1:350, QE / PoW works out as 800mm - the only other 1:350 kit that I know of that is larger is the Tamiya USS Enterprise.  However, as there is a range of 1:200 WW2 battleships that seem to be growing, hopefully there is the market in 1:350 for a model of that size.  Btw, have Airfix produced any other ships in 1:350 ship apart from the Type 45?

Yes, the 1/700 Titanic is an Academy re-box, but it's a smart move by Airfix to get into the 1/700 scale. Revell on the other hand are notorious for odd scales...

 

1/200 kits are in a whole other league (and price bracket), not to mention Trumpeter's recent 1/48 Type Vii release. But it does prove there's a market out there and pockets deep enough...

Edited November 11, 2019 by RussellE

[Smokeyr67]

I’ve been thinking that I need a large project, this would be right up that alley!

[Scimitar F1]

They are just so hideous as ships. I cannot put my finger on it but to me they are awful to look at. Same goes for the Air Wing - the F-35 and the Merlin. 
 

I simply cannot believe that Airfix would make any money compared to the tooling costs of such a beast in 1/350 - 1/600 is a different matter.

 

Will

Edited November 12, 2019 by Scimitar F1

[Rob G]

21 minutes ago, Scimitar F1 said:

They are just so hideous as ships. I cannot put my finger on it but to me they are awful to look at.

 

The easy answer is that they're graceless boxes, a quality that they share with the great majority of modern naval vessels. All slab sides and sharp angles and boring, boring, grey. There's absolutely no allowance in the design for any sort of charm or fineness of line. Ditto for the aircraft. Just ick.

[VMA131Marine]

20 hours ago, Paul H said:

Strangely, Revell's recent snap kit one is 1:600, despite their regular glue kit Olympic & Titanic being 1:700, but not aware of any other newly tooled 1:600 ships.

Academy also did a 1:600 Titanic. It is not the same kit as the Revell.

[VMA131Marine]

1 hour ago, Scimitar F1 said:

simply cannot believe that Airfix would make any money compared to the tooling costs of such a beast in 1/350 - 1/600 is a different matter.

Tooling scale more directly with the number of parts not the size of those parts. The development costs of a 1/700 kit are therefore going to be more than 1/2 of the costs of a 1/350 kit most likely.

[Smokeyr67]

4 hours ago, Scimitar F1 said:

They are just so hideous as ships. I cannot put my finger on it but to me they are awful to look at. Same goes for the Air Wing - the F-35 and the Merlin. 
 

Will

Compared to the RANs new LHDs, the QE class are the supermodels of the flat top naval world

[Rickoshea52]

I must be in a tiny minority, I think the QE, F-35 and the Merlin look rather smart.

[Paul Bradley]

I think the for'ard island is a bit too for'ard, and the front of the flight deck is a bit bluff, but otherwise a smart ship. 

[RussellE]

23 minutes ago, Smokeyr67 said:

Compared to the RANs new LHDs, the QE class are the supermodels of the flat top naval world

Agreed! And I'm an antipodean too!

16 minutes ago, Rickoshea52 said:

I must be in a tiny minority, I think the QE, F-35 and the Merlin look rather smart.

Me too! And when compared to the Nimitz and Gerald Ford classes, not that much different, stylistically.

5 minutes ago, Paul Bradley said:

I think the for'ard island is a bit too for'ard, and the front of the flight deck is a bit bluff, but otherwise a smart ship. 

Ah, but this is where form follows function. The f'wd island is for control of the ship, giving a good view of the bow (Something the Americans lack in their Nimitz and Gerald Ford Class) and the aft island is for flight operations giving a good view of the flight deck and approaching a/c.

[JohnT]

5 hours ago, Scimitar F1 said:

They are just so hideous as ships. I cannot put my finger on it but to me they are awful to look at.

I confess when I see them both in model form and when in the tin, sailing I have mixed feelings. Glad that the RN are getting back into fixed wing aviation but wishing the design, while doubtless a form of function, looked a little less, well ..... porky. No one is going to accuse them of grace and style anytime soon. They are no Hood or Cossack by any stretch of the imagination though I presume entirely functional and designed to do a job and not just to look pretty. 
 

I hope someone does them in model form for our nautical modelling brethren though and 1/350 will permit detailing for the average modeller where the smaller scales are more challenging to detail to us plastic bashers. I get amazed at what some of you can do in the “tiny” scales. Truly incredible at times. 

[Smokeyr67]

The new US carriers, with the aft mounted superstructure remind me of a game fishing boat, they just need a tower and a set of outriggers and they’d be the ultimate gin palace

 

Is anyone making 1/350 F 35’s?

Edited November 12, 2019 by Smokeyr67
Additional question

[NigelC]

On 11/11/2019 at 5:48 PM, 4scourge7 said:

When HMS QE made her first, night transit of the Forth Rail Bridge it was genuinely eerie the way her massive size blocked out the lights on the bridge as she passed by, and all that could be heard in the low light was a slight humming noise.

 

It was otherworldly.

 

It were great! 👽👽

For a reason that I can't go into (taps nose cagily), I'm very pleased to hear that.

[Scimitar F1]

5 hours ago, VMA131Marine said:

Tooling scale more directly with the number of parts not the size of those parts. The development costs of a 1/700 kit are therefore going to be more than 1/2 of the costs of a 1/350 kit most likely.

Was thinking more of how many would be sold rather than the cost of tooling. Apparently the F6F cost £100K to tool so appreciate that this would be considerably less. 

[Paul Bradley]

1 hour ago, RussellE said:

Ah, but this is where form follows function. The f'wd island is for control of the ship, giving a good view of the bow (Something the Americans lack in their Nimitz and Gerald Ford Class) and the aft island is for flight operations giving a good view of the flight deck and approaching a/c.

I've no doubt they did their homework with the design - doesn't make her look any better though!  😉 An interesting tidbit in the TV prog was the part about the part the wind direction plays in flight ops, specifically the blanking and funneling effect of the islands and the turbulence this sets up across the very spots the F-35s land on. 

[cmatthewbacon]

Interesting to hear them bigging up the “rolling landing” on QE in the most recent episode as something extraordinarily difficult that’s “never been done before”...

 

First, I find it hard to believe that 40 knots forward airspeed really makes that big a difference to how much ordnance you can land back on.

 

But mostly, I bet all those Phantom and Buccaneer pilots banging their flying bricks back onto the stern of the Ark Royal pitching up and down 40 feet in a heavy sea, not to mention the FAA Corsair drivers or Winkle Brown during his first jet carrier landings might debate _exactly_ how difficult driving down a corridor in the sky on the helmet display towards a deck you could land on sideways in a millpond sea actually is. And I’m sure I’ve seen plenty of Harriers doing short rolling landings at air shows this last couple of decades or more, so the principle seems pretty well established...

 

</end off topic rant>
 

best,

M.

[Robertone139]

1 hour ago, Smokeyr67 said:

Is anyone making 1/350 F 35’s?

Orange Hobby  makes F-35Cs, but no F-35Bs.

[Robertone139]

On 11/11/2019 at 3:58 PM, Paul H said:

At 1:350, QE / PoW works out as 800mm - the only other 1:350 kit that I know of that is larger is the Tamiya USS Enterprise.  However, as there is a range of 1:200 WW2 battleships that seem to be growing, hopefully there is the market in 1:350 for a model of that size.  Btw, have Airfix produced any other ships in 1:350 ship apart from the Type 45?

There are 5 other carrier injection plastic models in 1/350 scale that outsize it: CV-63, CV-64, CV-67, CVN-68, Admiral Kuznetsov and the Chinese Liaoning.

Other 1/350 kits that may be longer (but not wider) are the Iowa class Battleships and the Carriers Lexington and Saratoga (CV-2 and CV-3).

Airfix also produced a bathub toy looking Illustrious (I hope that the Royal Navy hulls actually possess much more slender bows and not the performance clipping aspect of a WWII Liberty class transport) and a Royal Navy nuclear attack submarine.

Edited November 12, 2019 by Robertone139

[Albeback52]

9 hours ago, Rob G said:

 

The easy answer is that they're graceless boxes, a quality that they share with the great majority of modern naval vessels. All slab sides and sharp angles and boring, boring, grey. There's absolutely no allowance in the design for any sort of charm or fineness of line. Ditto for the aircraft. Just ick.

Succinctly put! 😂😂. True though!

[VMA131Marine]

4 hours ago, cmatthewbacon said:

irst, I find it hard to believe that 40 knots forward airspeed really makes that big a difference to how much ordnance you can land back on.

Simple q * CL-max * wing area

 

where q is the dynamic pressure = 0.5 * density * (true airspeed)^2

[4scourge7]

I don`t see that size or expense alone would preclude a 1/350th QE. Not when kits in the £100 plus range are bringing Airfix such success. And this is the nation`s flagship that is going to be on our teleboxes for the next fifty years. If Airfix doesn`t do it, someone other company will, and it will be only half as good as if Airfix had done it first. 

Airfix! Airfix! Airfix! 

[593jones]

On ‎11‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 11:44 PM, Robertone139 said:

Orange Hobby  makes F-35Cs, but no F-35Bs.

In that scale is the difference detectable?