Airfix Bristol Beaufort Mk.I (A04021) 1:72

[Mike]

Bristol Beaufort Mk.I (A04021)

1:72 Airfix

 

 

The Beaufort was a medium- and torpedo-bomber that was developed from lessons learned from the Blenheim, which was a little out-dated by the time hostilities commenced.  It was named after the Duke of Beaufort, and was ordered side-by-side with its competitor for the specification, which was the Blackburn Botha.  It is a twin-engined bomber powered by a pair of Bristol Taurus radial engines, and although it was originally intended primarily as a torpedo bomber, it was more often used as a bomber where it saw extensive service during the opening years of WWII.  It was fast and rugged, but initially its armament was found to be insufficient to defend against attack, so this was remedied by adding more guns, including a clear dustbin under the nose, which turned out to be practically useless, so was often removed.

 

By 1942 it was deemed to be unfit for front-line service, although more airframes had been lost to accident and mechanical issues than to enemy action, partly due to the troublesome Taurus engines.  Various upgrades were made in addition to the armament in order to improve the capabilities and reliability of the aircraft, with the Taurus engines briefly replaced by Pratt & Whitney Twin-Wasps, but returning to the Taurus units when supplies of the P&W engines couldn’t be maintained.  After leaving the front-line, it was used in training, with the last heavily modified airframe leaving the factory in 1943 in the UK.  Many Beauforts were made in Australia as DAP Beauforts, with their own variants, including a transport type with a new centre fuselage section.

 

The basic design of the Beaufort was re-used in the more successful Beaufighter, which was almost a coupé Beaufort with a much-reduced fuselage that gave it a higher top speed and better overall performance, plus it was found that it could carry out pretty much all of the tasks previously allocated to the Beauforts, as well as being an excellent nightfighter with heavy armament.

 

The Kit

This is a brand-new tooling from Airfix, and should make many people quite happy.  We’re a bit late to the party, but it’s better late than never, so here goes.  It’s a high-quality, crisp tooling from the Airfix stable, and includes plenty of detail that used to only appear in kits in a larger scale, as well as their modern tooling tricks that make the build a more pleasant proposition.  One aspect that hasn’t quite worked out are the trapezoid protectors on the fuselage sprue, which were designed to save the trailing edge fairings from damage during shipping.  This hasn’t worked, and both tips of the fairings were curled over on my example, but not so badly that they couldn’t be straightened.  Otherwise detail is excellent, which is high praise coming from a modeller used to larger scales.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Construction begins with the fuselage floor, which has three 1mm holes drilled in it if you intend fitting the torpedo.  The aft wing spar has a seat attached to the front, then it is joined with the floor along with the front spar with moulded-in bulkhead, and appliqué radio gear fitted to its rear.  In the cockpit is a “slide” under the hatch, and in the centre a long console with controls and an upstand for the instrument panel is glued in before adding the pilot’s seat with armour panel over a flat floor insert.  The instrument panel has the rudder pedals fixed behind it, and a decal with the dials on for the front, with the foot well closed off behind and a swivelling seat for the front crew member hanging out over the nose.  The control column is glued in a recess in the floor, and aft of the wings an Elsan toilet is salted away under where the window for the waist gun will be later.  There’s a joke in there somewhere, but I’ll leave it up to you!

 

The fuselage halves both have ribbing moulded into them, and they are prepped by adding circular windows, an access hatch with a D-shaped window, and a support for the waist gun, which will be occupied later.  There is a flange at the rear of the upper fuselage that should be removed from both sides for the turret insert to fit properly later, then the interior can be slid into place in the port fuselage through the spar slots.  A section of floor in front of the pilot is added at the front, then the tail-wheel bay and bulkhead at the rear, and another bulkhead just forward of the Elsan, after which you can close up the fuselage, installing the optional pilot on his seat if you intend using him.  A scrap diagram gives a detailed painting guide if you need it.  Moving back aft to the turret, the insert with turret ring is inserted into the aperture, then underneath the bomb bay bulkheads with their torpedo cut-out are installed, to be finished off later.

 

The wings are separate entities that are slipped over the twin spars when complete, and they have a cut-out for a pair of landing lights in the port side, and recesses for the main gear bays with some nice detail moulded-in.  The flying surfaces are separate, and you get a choice of flaps, depending on which decal option you have chosen.  The ailerons are standard across both, as are the elevators, which have single thickness flying surfaces and dual-thickness fins, with an unusual circular location pin that I’ve not seen before.  The rudder is also separate and can be added deflected if you wish.  Before the engine nacelles are made up, the locations for the main gear legs are built from three sections to create a twin A-frame, a bulkhead is inserted into the rear of the bay recess, then the nacelles are each made from two halves with a bulkhead at the inside front and are then glued over the location, adding intakes into the recess at the top.  Both banks of Taurus cylinders are depicted in the kit, the aft bank surrounded by a circular ring, and the front bank glued in place trapping the propeller shaft in place, which slides through a collector with stators in a three-pointed star form.  The nacelle halves join around it and the cooling flaps are fixed to the rear, completing the assembly by extending the exhaust to the rear.  The engines and cowlings are handed, so their mating points with the nacelles are also keyed to ensure they go together correctly, with the exhausts on the outboard side of the cowlings.

 

The Beaufort was quite well-stocked for windows, which are crystal clear and include small sections of the fuselage where appropriate on this kit, forming the stepped canopy and asymmetrical glazing on the right side, the glass nose for the bombardier's use, and the angular windows from which he takes aim under the tip of the nose.  The mid-upper turret is well-detailed and covered by two glazed sections with twin Lewis guns and a bicycle seat for the operator, while the semi-useless nose lower gun station is fitted to the outside skin with its single .303 machine gun mounted in the clear glazing.  The turrets are dealt with later in the build after the bomb bay and landing gear are finished.  You have three choices regarding the bomb bay, which is to insert a single part that closes over all three sections, pose the front and rear torpedo sections opened inward and the wider central section opened outwards, or cut the outer sections of the closed bay off and use them to close the outer section of the main bay to carry a torpedo, which is made later.

 

If you’re building your Beaufort in a wheels-up pose, you’ll still need to make and paint the wheels, as they’re visible even retracted, but they are inserted with the flat-spot uppermost, hidden inside the bay, and with a representation of the strut and bay door covering the front of the bay.  The tail wheel is always extended, and is a single part that fits into the bay with a transparent diagram showing how it attaches within.  For the gear down option, the retraction frames are made up, and inserted into the rear of the bays, with the bottom ends glued to the main legs.  Scrap diagrams help you fit them correctly, then the two bay doors are snapped into the bay sides on their long hinges, and the two-part wheels are flexed into position, with what looks like a 4-legged squid attached to the front of each strut.  They’re more likely to be bumpers to assist the doors opening and closing, like the Mossie.  Various small parts are added around the wings, then the turrets mentioned earlier are put in place, with a fairing around the top turret and a scrap diagram showing how it should fit.

 

Torpedo time!  It was one of the Beaufort’s primary uses, and it would be churlish not to include one, so they did.  The main body is assembled from two halves, a set of screws at the rear, a substantial H-shaped stabiliser at the very rear, and a fusing spinner at the front.  It is mounted on a trestle-like pylon within the main bay, which is made from two parts, and once the torpedo is installed, it is bracketed by the outer panels of the bay doors cut from the cruciform closed bay insert.  An L-shaped pitot is slotted into a hole under the glass nose, a pair of clear lights are glued into each wingtip, and if you have left the waist gun hatch open, a Lewis gun with dinner-plate magazine is affixed to the support within the window.  The model is finished by putting on the props with their little spinners, adding a stocky aerial behind the cockpit, another near the top turret, and a narrow, raised part between them.

 

 

Markings

Two options are included on the decal sheet, one in dark earth/dark green over sky, the other in dark sea grey/dark slate grey over black.  From the box you can build one of the following:

 

• N1016 OA*X No.22 Sqn., RAF St Eval, Cornwall, England, 6th April 1941 – mission against German Battleship Gneisenau
• L9866 MW*J, No.217 Sqn. RAF St Eval, Cornwall, England, 1st February 1941 – mission against German cruiser Admiral Hipper

 

 

 

 

Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas.  There are also plenty of stencils to apply around the airframe, which always improves the detail of any aircraft model.

 

 

 

Conclusion

What a nice kit.  There is a lot of detail, all of which is crisp and delicate, much improved from their output from back in the day.  Now I just need one in 1:48 please.  Pretty please?

 

Highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of

[JPuente54]

I built the old FROG one decades ago. I was happy to see tat Airfix was offering a brand new one for sale. The moldings look great!