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Which Wellington To Buy?


fishplanebeer

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I'm looking to add a Wellington 1a/c or Mk 2 to my 72nd scale collection and would welcome some advice on which would be the best kit to go for please as I'm not entirely sure about all the options.

 

Re the 1a/c the latest Airfix kit seems to be a good choice however they also did a 1a/c some time prior to this release, kit number A05037, which is a wee bit cheaper but is it just a re-box of the MPM kit possibly? Trumpeter and of course MPM also do the 1a/c as well and the former seems to be well thought of.

 

Re a Mk2 the new Airfix kit is due at some point and MPM also do/did this variant as well, plus Revell issued their own Mk2 but again is this just an MPM re-box?

 

Regards

Colin.

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The Airfix kits are not MPM re-pops. The Trumpeter kit looks good, but I haven't built one, just fondled the plastic a little. Same with the MPM kit.

 

Personally, I'd go for the Airfix kit. Either the 1C or the new II.

 

 

 

Chris

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I think Airfix did do a re pop of the MPM kit a few years ago in the box with the grey wavy design on. Of course they issued one that goes back to the mid 50s'. But it would best to go for the new tool Airfix ones.

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23 minutes ago, Roman Schilhart said:

In my opinion, Airfix also has the edge on the geodetic surface structure.

 

Minor understatement - the trumpeter representation is grossly overscale. If you look at the real thing close up the geodetic construction is barely visible under the fabric, the trumpeter rendition is akin to the starved cow effect seen on some biplane kits,

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I built the Trumpeter Ia/Ic several years ago. At that time, on-line articles comparing it with the MPM series showed MPM’s interior was largely fiction compared to the 4+ publication and fit could be problematical. Trumpeter’s nacelles are too narrow, resulting in gear bays too narrow and wheel/tires more appropriate to a bicycle than a heavy bomber. I kept a MPM Mk II in case I ever wanted to modify the Airfix Ia/c but the pending release of the Airfix II made that plan obsolete. Go Airfix if you want a Wellington. The instructions even show which interior parts can be omitted if you want to skip that detail

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Many thanks for all the feedback, so Airfix it is.

 

As well as the Wellington I'm sure Airix did a repop of a few other kits at this time such as the Academy B17G plus a 'Mistel' as well although I haven't seen either for sale for quite a while now. Were there any others I wonder?

 

Regards

Colin.

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Not wanting to hijack this thread, I'll ask a similar but more specific question.  I've already made the decision to go Airfix in the case of a Wellington Mk.II (ditching the MPM one), but what do you suggest for a Wellington Mk.III, Mk.X and a Mk.XIV or am I stuck with either Trumpeter or MPM? 

 

Scott

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Let me summarize a bit available options

1. Old Airfix Mk III

2. Frog/Novo/Intech/.... Mk Ic

3 Matchbox/Revell Mk X

4. MPM/Revell/Italeri family (many variants incl. Mk Ic, II, III, IV, X, VIII )

5. Trumpeter  (Mk Ic, Mk III, Mk X. Mk XIV)

6. New Airfix (Mk Ic, VIII and II)

 

Airfix seems to be the best, Trumpeter has too narrow engine nacelles and wheels, MPM is said to have some problems in canopy and some turrets. 

Still no kit of Mk V, VI or turretless early Mk I... 

A whole timescale "tree" starting in 1939 Frog Pinguin one (!) here

https://www.scalemates.com/pl/products/product.php?id=102683&p=timeline

Regards

J-W

 

 

Edited by JWM
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The nose for the maritime version of the Matchbox Wellington will provide the early Vickers turret/gun mounting.

 

Obviously the Penguin one comes first in some kind of plastic, but I suspect Skybirds may have done a 1/72 one before that - sadly there's no good account of those.  Did the Airfix Wellington come before the smaller-scale Frog one?  (I think it did -I have the books upstairs that will tell me, but let's leave it as a query for now.)  Not being 1/72, it is missing from the list in JWM's link.  Yes, Frog's 1/72 Wellington was much later - well, it seemed much later at the time.

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2 hours ago, tempestfan said:

 

5037 from the early Hornby years is. Not to be confused with the current new-tool kit(s) - and indeed 4001, the Mother of All Wellington Kits. 

 

Ah! So it is. I never knew that before. My bad!

 

 

 

Chris

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2 hours ago, fishplanebeer said:

Many thanks for all the feedback, so Airfix it is.

 

As well as the Wellington I'm sure Airix did a repop of a few other kits at this time such as the Academy B17G plus a 'Mistel' as well although I haven't seen either for sale for quite a while now. Were there any others I wonder?

 

Regards

Colin.

Heller Vampire, Bf.109K, Tempest  ... a couple of others... Italeri Chinook, Hercules, Vista Fulmar

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From memory I think the Frog Wellington was close to being issued when the company folded so it never emerged in an actual Frog box but I did have one in a plastic bag back in the early 80's (no decals) which I presume was from the new or interim custodian of the molds. At the time it looked pretty good but standards have now risen significantly so I suspect it's now only of interest to collectors.

 

Regards

Colin.

 

Ps. just checked my Airfix book and it seems their original Wellington was first issued in 1958 so it's taken them a while to update it!

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7 minutes ago, fishplanebeer said:

From memory I think the Frog Wellington was close to being issued when the company folded so it never emerged in an actual Frog box but I did have one in a plastic bag back in the early 80's (no decals) which I presume was from the new or interim custodian of the molds. At the time it looked pretty good but standards have now risen significantly so I suspect it's now only of interest to collectors.

 

 

I have 2 FROG Wellys, one was released by Imtech and another that was a bagged Eastern Europe re-pop.

 

 

 

Chris

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On 9/22/2021 at 9:24 PM, fishplanebeer said:

 

 

Ps. is 4001 possibly the old Airfix kit that started life as 1419 in 1959?

Yes, exactly. I think (old) Airfix kits in computer product numbers 😉

 

@Graham Boak: The Frog 1/119 kit was released in 1959, according to L/H.

Edited by tempestfan
Adding Frog
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