Zebra's Airfix Vulcan

[zebra]

It must be a couple of years since I last posted a WIP here - just about all of my modelling in the last couple of years has been in group builds. But my Airfix Vulcan arrived in the mail this week and there was absolutely no way it was going to make it as far as the stash - it has to be built straight away!

 

Aside from being a stunning looking kit of one of my absolute favourite aircraft (it probably ties with the Viscount - which I'm also currently building, in the French Fancy group build) there are some sentimental reasons for building it. My Dad passed away recently (I justified buying it from the UK to myself, rather than waiting for it to reach Australian shops, by telling myself it would have been my birthday present from him!) and it was one of his favourites. He grew up near Woodford (and Jimmy Nelson, an Avro test pilot, lived next door to him for a while) and used to talk about seeing the prototype flying over. The last time I was able to visit the UK we went to the Avro Heritage Museum together, and were shown the cockpit of XM602 by a retired Vulcan pilot. So I think he'd have been pretty pleased that I was building the Vulcan, and I know we'd have been talking about it on the weekly phone call.

 

I've got plenty of great memories of the Vulcan myself - I know I'm far from the only one on BM! - to me it was always the star of the show at the Woodford airshow. I used to love seeing it show us its belly on a steep turn and open its huge bomb bay. Other Vulcan memories that stand out include getting to look in the cockpit of XM603 once, and sheltering from the rain under XM603 at a typically wet Woodford show!

 

I haven't decided which airframe this will be, but I'm leaning towards something from the late 70s or very early 80s, to represent the Vulcans that I saw at those Woodford airshows. So this will most likely have the low-viz roundels and light aircraft grey underside. Although the Red Flag scheme with the tan and brown underside is tempting. I've had the Freightdog 'Gods of Sea and Fire' sheet sitting in the stash for ages so it'll probably be one of the options from that sheet. I'll be following the various other builds on here - particularly @Adam Poultney's - and will get try to get the external details right, but won't be adding much detail aside from that. 

 

Won't share sprue shots - there are enough of them on BM already - so straight into it, starting with the nice cockpit. I've done the basic assembly and it's in the garage drying after a coat of Mr Surfacer black primer. I'm going to use the Kits-World 3D cockpit decals - I know it'll be barely visible, but I'll know it's there, and after that cockpit tour a couple of years ago I feel like I need it to have at least a presentable cockpit. I think I'll build it with the entry hatch open as well.

 

Here's the cockpit, mostly assembled before I painted it black:

 

more soon

Julian

 

[Adam Poultney]

Can't wait to see what you make from this kit, and good choice on the Kitsworld cockpit 3D decals. I don't think much at all of the standard Vulcan sheet they make but the cockpit one is superb, you may need some watered down PVA though to help them stick, they like to try to curl up. 

Let me know when you've got some specific ideas for an airframe and what particular point in time it will represent. Thankfully there is no shortage of photos of Vulcans late in their service life, so finding photos of pretty much any given airframe shouldn't be difficult at all. I can easily find the info on pretty much all the configuration bits you'll need