1/72 - Fairey Battle Mk.I by FRROM - 3D renders+sprues design+box art+decals+schemes - release in April-May 2024

[GrzeM]

Great! Many Polish modellers were waiting for good 1/72 Battle for decades!

It was the first bomber used by Polish crews during Battle of Britain - bombing German landing crafts in Flanders harbours.

[LN-KEH]

On 4/6/2023 at 4:04 AM, marvinneko said:

Canada had 750 Fairey Battles sent to us as a UK contribution (in lieu of $) for training Commonwealth aircrew on bombing and gunnery.... standing in that crazy back area or lying on the floor while bored chauffeurs buzzed the plane around in sometimes dangerous maneuvers. Howard Hewer (WOAG) tells the story of almost falling out of a Battle when his chauffeur got bored on the stick and the cable meant to hold the students inside was missing. Chauffeurs seemed to enjoy messing with students as they tried to complete deflection shooting tasks at drogues towed by other Battles in target tug paint schemes. 

 

Would love to have one or two of these... and to have Canada a little more prominent. Would love some Mossbank, SK serials where my great uncle trained 

 

A list of our planes by serial #:

 

https://caspir.warplane.com/bin/warplanero.exe?action=webprograms&subaction=airserialscanadian&aircraftno=200000223

 

Not only Commonwealth aircrew trained on Fairey Battles in Canada, other Allied nations like Norway did also send trainees to units flying Battles.

I did a detour from St. Johns to Ottawa to get a glimpse of the Battle in the museum there.

 

Special Hobby did release a target tug / trainer version of the Northrop A-17 with Canadian markings, a rather more obscure type than the Battle.

I am quite sure Frrom and Special Hobby have plans for releasing a target tug / gunnery trainer with Canadian / South African / Aussie markings, either with a new fuselage sprue and clear parts or with resin bits for the conversion.

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by LN-KEH

[marvinneko]

3 hours ago, LN-KEH said:

Not only Commonwealth aircrew trained on Fairey Battles in Canada, other Allied nations like Norway did also send trainees to units flying Battles.

I did a detour from St. Johns to Ottawa to get a glimpse of the Battle in the museum there.

 

Great point. I learned about the Little Norway training centre in Toronto (and then Muskoka) not that long ago. Some interesting photos floating around the net about it.

 

Thanks for sharing that photo. That plane is on my list to visit.

[Homebee]

More renders, Battle Mk.I

Source: https://www.specialhobby.net/2023/04/chystame-pro-azur-frrom-posleze-i-pro.html

 

V.P.

 

 

Edited April 13, 2023 by Homebee

[Tbolt]

Looking good. I just hope the panel lines are more Mirage III like than Mirage F.1 like as with all those close panel lines it won't look great if they are a bit wide.

[JFM148]

1 hour ago, Tbolt said:

Looking good. I just hope the panel lines are more Mirage III like than Mirage F.1 like as with all those close panel lines it won't look great if they are a bit wide.

From these renders, I can see that that many panel lines could be a "problem" if they are the size of Airfix 1/72 kits (Zero, Wildcat) or... they would be fantastic detail if they are thin enough like Special hobby kits (Me-109E, Harvard T-6)

 

My ignorant two cents... 

[Tbolt]

5 minutes ago, JFM148 said:

From these renders, I can see that that many panel lines could be a "problem" if they are the size of Airfix 1/72 kits (Zero, Wildcat) or... they would be fantastic detail if they are thin enough like Special hobby kits (Me-109E, Harvard T-6)

 

My ignorant two cents... 

 

The 109E is basically an Eduard kit and the Harvard is an Academy kit that's why they have finer panel lines. But SH's Mirage III has nice sized panel lines so I'm just hoping that all their future toolings are like this including this kit.

[marvinneko]

Frrom updated their website. The May/June release is now July/summer (English and French webpages differ).

[Heather Kay]

[Gilles_53]

And now, we have got the first draft for the boxarts :

 

FR0047 Fairey Battle for Poland

 

FR0048 Fairey Battle AASF

 

And this :

 

With questions: 

- was the marking of the individual letter under the nose common in the RAF / AASF ? Excepted this one, I don't remember any ...

- could we assume that the aircraft in the photo was MQoR ?

 

 

[dogsbody]

Bigger photos would be nice!

 

 

 

Chris

[Gilles_53]

Well, I understood we are limited to 360 pixels on maximum dimension (at least in the FRROM website) so I always taylor the photos accordingly -excepted when I forget, that may happen.

[Homebee]

Decals

 

- ref. FR0046 - Fairey Battle in Belgium

Source: http://frrom.com/index.php?page=frrom-fr0046

•    Belgium- T70 - Aéronautique Militaire Belge- 1940
•    RAF/AASF - PMoL - 103 Sqn -  Challeranges (France) - May -June 1940
•    Greece - B274 - 33 Mira - Greece 1940

 

 

- ref. FR0047 - Fairey Battle for Poland

Source: http://frrom.com/index.php?page=frrom-fr0047

• Polish RAF Sqn  -  Sqn 301 - 1940
• RAF pre WWII  - 52oB/K7602 -  Sqn 57 - late 1937
• Canada - 59 - serial 1837 

 

 

 

- ref. FR0048 - Fairey Battle AASF

Source: http://frrom.com/index.php?page=frrom-fr0048

• RAF Advanced Air Striking Force - MQoR/K9183 - 226 Sqn - Reims 1940
• Australia - OO/K7600 - Air Gunnery School - Victoria, January 1942-1944
• South Africa - 33oB - Algato - July 1941

 

 

V.P.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Homebee

[JWM]

8 hours ago, Gilles_53 said:

Well, I understood we are limited to 360 pixels on maximum dimension (at least in the FRROM website) so I always taylor the photos accordingly -excepted when I forget, that may happen.

Gilles, Battle looks really great. I think the vast number of modelers is blessing you for doing it so well!

Regarding the picture size on BM I think 1000 px is a limit

[Heather Kay]

So many choices! Belgian one, obviously. AASF or Polish one for the RAF? Perhaps both! And Greek for when my obsession moves to the Mediterranean…

 

Oh, and pre-war RAF, plus SAAF, Canadian and Australian markings - good call. Can’t wait!

[Enzo the Magnificent]

They look so good.  Can I have mine now please? 

 

[TheKinksFan]

The price is £22.50 on Hannant's, 10% off as a backorder. If the quality is high, it's not expensive for a new tool kit of that size, taking into account what kits cost nowadays. But one thing is certain, I'm not gonna build mine before there's a mask set

[dalea]

Maybe they won't all be released at the same time. It would be easier on the wallet.

[JWM]

7 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

or Polish one for the RAF?

Even more! There are also decals on aftermarket like that https://www.scalemates.com/pl/kits/sp-decal-7212-fairey-battle--218570 

Cheers

J-W

 

[Gilles_53]

FR0047 boxart (not the last version, the fin flag has been lost, we should get it back), 1000 pixels as requested:

 

 

FR0048 boxart:

 

And still the pending question : was the letter R under nose of MQoR ? We will probably have it into the decals, anyway!

[Gilles_53]

And the plan is to release all of them as soon as possible (beginning of September - still in summer !). Molds are done.

[GrzeM]

1 hour ago, Gilles_53 said:

FR0047 boxart (not the last version, the fin flag has been lost, we should get it back), 1000 pixels as requested:

 

 

 

If this is the same plane, the letters should be bigger:

[Enzo the Magnificent]

2 hours ago, Gilles_53 said:

 

 

What a superb boxart!   

 

 

[Gilles_53]

FR0047 box art, modified as requested (letters and fin flag)

 

[Vulcanicity]

21 hours ago, Gilles_53 said:

 

And still the pending question : was the letter R under nose of MQoR ? We will probably have it into the decals, anyway!

I am *not* a Battle expert, but usually code letters on the underside of aircraft noses are repeated from the fuselage not substituted (i.e. both fuselage MQ-R and nose R are present). The purpose is so that ground crews driving /walking past the front of a line of parked aircraft can easily tell which is which even when the rear fuselage isn't visible, without having to divert around the side of each machine in turn. There are many other examples in WW2 and post war UK aircraft.

 

The box art and sprues look great, I am really looking forward to this kit and it's probably the only new kit I will buy in 2023 (in a very poor year for British military modellers in 1/72).