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Great choice........of socks and the kits not bad either ! :whistle:

Like many on here I've had one of these in the stash for years longer that I can remember. 

Can you remind me is it possible to build the tanker version that was used for the epically long Vulcan raid on Port Stanley Airfield ?

Cheers Pat 

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45 minutes ago, JOCKNEY said:

 

Can you remind me is it possible to build the tanker version that was used for the epically long Vulcan raid on Port Stanley Airfield ?

Cheers Pat 

Short answer, yes.  You will need to make a few mods, e.g  the Omega antenna fairing below the tail.  There are lists of serial numbers for the Victors that participated (I think XL231 missed out until the very end for example).  The eventual "long slot" jet was XL189, captained by Bob Tuxford, which was sadly destroyed ar the whim of some miserable, soulless, penny-pinching, undiscerning civil servant at the Misery of Disarmament in 1988.

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Good to know, though don’t think I will be doing a Falkland a ones myself. Anyway had hoped to show the nice multi colour plastic but seems I forgot to take a pic when I primed the spruces so they are in dull primer grey, which is a bit dumb on another level as I had intended to do a camouflaged one with white undersides, however as I had picked up a while ago paint do the hemp scheme on the airfix So I might change my mind, the idea of brushing all that white isn’t so fun particularly as I tried it before on an airfix b2 only for the Vallejo white to peel off. 

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So good to see the big Victor on here and even better to see the original box in what appears to be very good condition. I’m also impressed that you’ve raided your sock draw Stu in search of colours that closely match Roy Huxley’s beautiful box art. 

 

Cheers, welcome aboard and best of luck.. Dave 

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Cheers, Having seen a builders incredible efforts of doing one of these for the Xmas blitz build I’m feeling under a huge pressure to revert to doing a camouflaged and white one now…. A couple of weeks to decide for certain, and a few more days of festive socks before they disappear in the draw till next December….

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  • 2 weeks later...

Years ago I bought a conversion set and one of these days I must get round to modifying my K2 to a bomber. I seem to remember the only problem I had with this kit was getting the main wheels to stay on as their "bogie" was a butt joint with the legs, but I expect yours will be wheels up and thus avoid the problem.

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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Indeed it will be wheels up, can't wait to start it tomorrow :) Also confirmed it won't be camo/white, put in a paint order earlier and seeing the fact it the white paint cost a tenner as well as the memory of the vallejo white peeling off few years ago took over so will definitely be Hemp and LAG. 

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Way back in the early 1980s Rareplanes announced a vacform Victor. I was reasonably competent in vacs back then so I ordered one the old fashioned way, by post. 

I think it was from MHW Models, although I could be wrong at this distance in time. 

It seemed to take an age to arrive. I think it had a longer gestation period than Rareplanes had expected but it did eventually turn up. After a huge amount of sanding and an almost constant hoovering of styrene dust from my bedroom I got the thing built. It was a K2 out of the box and a mighty impressive beast. 

The vacform gods suitably satisfied, the Matchbox kit turned up within a matter of months. 

You don't have to thank me 😀

John 

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Now that is interesting John. Having built the Rareplanes Vulcan, I too placed an pre-order for the Victor, in my case from H J Walkers in Hackney Post Office, but after a long wait I was told Gordon had abandoned it due to the release of the Matchbox kit - sounds like he did make some after all!

 

MHW brings back happy memories - if I am correct he was based in the former telephone exchange at Cross Roads near the KWVR station at Oakworth, just down the road from my birthplace, and I bought quite a bit from him. I even dropped in to see him when visiting my parents in Bradford and indulged myself. I think one of my 50p assorted Frog transfer packs came from there together with several other vac forms.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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7 minutes ago, PeterB said:

Now that is interesting John. Having built the Rareplanes Vulcan, I too placed an pre-order for the Victor, in my case from H J Walkers in Hackney Post Office, but after a long wait I was told Gordon had abandoned it due to the release of the Matchbox kit - sounds like he did make some after all!

 

 

Cheers

 

Pete

 

He made at least two Pete, I have an unbuilt one in the loft. It's well up to the usual Rareplanes standard. He must have been a bit put out by the arrival of the Matchbox kit!

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The Rareplanes Victor was state of the art when it came out, although I do remember having to straighten out quite a few white metal axles. 

It did seem to take an inordinate amount of time from announcement to actually turning up, and I can well imagine Gordon Stevens being a bit put out when Matchbox announced theirs. Either way it was a seriously good vacform kit. 

I got the Matchbox kit when it came out but I ended up donating it as a prize at the next Scottish Nationals, partly because I would be hard pressed to accommodate 2 built Victors and partly  - whisper it - I didn't think the surface detailing was as good as the Rareplanes kit 😱

FROG 50p decal packs, yes I had a few of these. An Airfix MiG-21 in FROG Iraqi markings sat on my shelf for years. It looked much better than the Hasegawa/FROG kit ever did. 

John 

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And off we go, going to spice the cockpit up using the airfix instructions and some spare parts from the aforementioned victor from the peeling incident.  http://village.photos/images/user/37ab7092-47f1-49f8-9123-c22e84bc6962/resized_f8673b32-899d-4112-934a-

Edited by PhantomBigStu
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I have very fond memories of building this kit during the "summer" of 1985. IMHO, the enormous Matchbox instruction booklet is superior to that in the Revell rebox, because you can actually see the correct position and orientation of every little stencil decal.

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This has to be the most badass plane ever built. I did a run near Yorkshire Air Museum, and went to see the K2 there after getting my run number. It was just sat there, looking like a drop-ship from a sci-fi film. Thank you @PhantomBigStu for building this.

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