EE Lightning F.6, Grand Phoenix (Airfix) 1/48th

[Mark V]

I was not planning on posting a WiP on this build because I have seen several build reviews online.  But, having just started on this kit I have a bunch of questions and observations already.

This is the Grand Phoenix kit, which includes the 1/48th Airfix kit plastic, Aires resin sets for the intake, cockpit, engine nozzles, and wheel wells.  Also included are Cartograph-printed decals which, from reviews of the Airfix kit, are much better than the Airfix kit decals.  I bought the kit from a modeler on Hyperscale several years ago.  

Here are the GP decals.  The stencil set looks really good.

 

I plan on continuing my 23 Squadron builds, using the Xtra Decal 23 Sqd History set.  I wanted to do XR753, the squadron leader's jet with white fuselage spine and tail.  But the Xtra set is a different "A" bird with less colorful (if you consider white colorful) markings.  

 

 

 

Here is a photo of some of the resin and photoetch.  I have already cut the mold blocks from the cockpit instrument panel. 

 

The Grand Phoenix instruction set is complete and focuses on using the resin in place of kit parts.  However the instructions are rather vague in parts placement and specific modifications required to the kit parts.  I did look up the Airfix instructions on Scalemates and they are not that much better, just more pages.

 

 

Edited December 27, 2022 by Mark V

[Mark V]

I started the kit by removing some of the big parts from the sprues.  I figured I would be needing to test fit the resin multiple times so might as well free up the parts.  Rather than the cockpit, I started on the intake assembly.  I had to clean up the resin parts, the radar bullet and fairings, with the nose gear well below.  There is also an aft NG well piece that's just slightly wider than the forward part.  I cut the kit NG well sides from the intake trunking (red circled areas) and sanded out the mold release pin marks from inside the intake trunks.  Once assembled the pin marks probably would not be visible, but the plastic is very soft so it was easy to sand and polish them out.  I sprayed some primer on the parts and will spray some aluminum silver color later today.  

 

 

It took several test fittings to get the NG cutout wide enough for the resin to fit.  Once done I taped everything together and dry fit it into the fuselage to see how it would look.  It goes together ok, the fuselage closes up around it.  Now I have to work on the cockpit to get it to fit.  

 

The biggest OMG! moment was when I looked at the main wheel well resin parts.  I had read that Aires wheel wells are excellent castings with notoriously bad fit.  That definitely defines these parts.  I consider them nearly unusable.  Here is the comparison of the kit wheel well to the resin part.

 

 

Here is the resin sitting atop the kit part.  I have not removed the resin casting block yet, but it is visible as the recessed area above the wheel well sidewalls.

 

 

 

The problem is that the resin parts are twice as thick (depth) as the kit wing allows.  It will be required to, once again with Aires, sand the top of the part to within a micron of existence.  Then I would have to grind down the sidewalls roughly 1/2 their depth.  This will wipe out some of the sidewall detail on the inside of the wheel well part.

 

My dilemma is whether or not to bother with the resin parts.  I may go ahead and cut/grind/sand the resin parts to see how messed up I can make them.  I will not remove the kit wheel well sides until I see how the resin looks.  That way if I F up the resin, no harm done to the kit.  In all of my Hasegawa Phantoms I have never bothered with resin gear wells because of the fit problems.  Once the model is on the shelf I don't notice the gear wells anyway.

 

 

[Mark V]

My first real question to the Britmodeller collective:  What color should the cockpit be painted?  I have read that some early cockpits were overall black, but most were grey.  Since this is a mid-1960s jet, would cockpits have still been black then?  I plan on doing a closed canopy to make the jet look sleek and menacing, so not much will be visible in the cockpit anyway.  It is very small compared to the size of the jet overall.

 

 

[Hook]

F.6 pits be Dark Admiralty Grey.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

[RichG]

Not sure what specific modifications you are referring to so can't really help. In general have always found Aires cockpit sets require a fair bit of sanding of the plastic parts (i.e cockpit sides, inside/tops of wings etc)  to ensure a good fit.

 

Edit: Sorry I see you have supplemented  your original post with more specifics: others may have more specific advice on these parts but as you suggest you need to remove and thin those areas on both the lower and upper inner wing surfaces to be almost paper thin. Not personally fitted this part and I'm not convinced that a pretty good wheel well could not be made from the basic kit with wire and rod - using the resin as a basic reference.  

 

Lightning F.6 cockpits were finished in  BS381c 632 Dark Admiralty Grey. This is a hard shade to find and not included in most of the popular modelling paint ranges. I've seen people use the wartime colurs Ocean Grey or Medium Sea Grey as a substitute, although Dark Sea Grey maybe technically closer - albeit dark for a 1/48 cockpit. I understand FS36152 is also a good match.  

 

If you are intent on building XR753/A 23 Sqn RAF Leuchars as flown by Wg.Cdr.I.Thompson (overall aluminium with white fin or B. Hopkins without white fin), you might check out the more recent Xtradecal X48099, dedicated to the Lightning F.6 which includes this a/c.

 

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/X48099

 

Hope that helps

 

Rich

 

PS that's a nice photo btw. I'm just in the process of building a 1/72 Frightning and was contemplating a natural metal finish and thinking about diferences in tone.  This photo could be useful for picking out the highly polished aluminium areas.

Edited November 23, 2022 by RichG

[Mark V]

Thanks Andre and Rich.  Gray it is for the cockpit.  That will definitely lighten it up some.

Thanks for the heads up on the decals.  I don't want to spend a bunch more money on the decals but if anyone has the specific 23 Sqd markings left over from that sheet I would be interested in buying them.  

The photo is from Airliners.net.  I did a search for Lightnings with 23 Sqd and there were several natural metal finish jets pictured.  I have several more photos saved showing the variations in metal tones on the jets.

[Lord Riot]

I’m not sure if it’s any use but there’s an Eduard etch set on eBay that includes wheel well interiors.

 

 

EDP48250 - Eduard Photoetch 1:48 - EE Lightning F-2/F6 (Airfix)
 

[Mark V]

It's been a month since my last post. I have made much progress on this build.  With the holidays almost here, there has been less time for modelling lately.  But progress has been made.

I have painted the Aires resin cockpit and engine nozzles.  There is not much of the exhaust showing so I'm not sure I would buy these parts for the base kit.  They came in the Grand Phoenix boxing so I put them in.  The instructions show the aft engine AB tubes attached only at the very aft of the fuselage.  I used the kit forward engine bulkhead but had to sand down the kit raised details to make everything fit.  I also drilled holes in the center of the flame holder rings in both the kit part and the Aires end pieces.  Then I glued a short length of wire to support the forward ends of the engine tubes through the kit bulkhead.

 

 

The Aires forward wheel well piece required some modification of the kit intake trunking, but that battle was won.  The cockpit required some grinding to get it to fit in the space above the intake trunk.  I removed a good bit of the kit intake below the cockpit, to translucence.  I also sanded down the underside of the cockpit as required for fit.

Now I am almost ready to glue the fuselage halves together.  When test fitting, I noticed that the forward part of the fuselage belly bulge comes in two halves, with a very sloppy fit.  Also, the gaping hole in the fuselage for these parts had no way to keep the parts from falling into the fuselage when attempting to secure them.  I added strip styrene to the forward and aft edges of the fuselage holes, and a short strip to one side of the insert halves.  This will support the parts when I eventually attach them.

 

Lastly was the rough up assembly of the major components to determine how much lead weight to add to keep the nose wheel on the ground.  I taped the flying surfaces to the fuselage and then stuck blobs of sticky putty over the landing gear mounting points.  I stuck lengths of sprue into the putty and set it down.  One fishing weight worked, barely.  Two will definitely do the job.  The weights are bullet shaped and did not fit well into the space allowed.  I pounded them flat with a hammer and they fit just fine.  I put them in place and put some white glue around them to, hopefully, hold them in place once the fuselage is assembled.  If they do come loose there is really not much play for them to move around.  

 

 

 

 

It looks like the lower weight will interfere with the fuselage joint.  I rubber banded the halves together while the white glue sets, moving the weight up and out of the way. 

Next week I can get the fuselage halves together and start the filling/sanding process.  There are a couple of mold sink marks and the seams will definitely require some work.  Hopefully I will not erase the panel lines too much.  This Airfix plastic is sooo soft.

[Pappy]

G'day Mark,

 

I have read that lead can react with PVA over time. This may just be a rumour but the issue has been discusse3d on this and other fora previously

I always use CA or epoxy,

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

[Mark V]

I thought CA glue reacting with lead was the problem.  I haven't closed up the fuselage yet, what with Christmas stuff happening.  I will research it some more.  Thanks for the heads up.

[gingerbob]

Hi, first time in this thread- I have an alarming tendency to be looking at Lightning builds lately!

 

Would it be convenient to glue the belly-bulge part to each fuselage half before closing the fuselage?  That might give you a better chance at getting it well lined up, and adequately "welded" in.  (I think they probably split it to capture the two different sized bulges- I'm a firm "earlier, smaller bulge" man, myself.)

 

The policy for airliners dot net photos is to NOT show them directly, rather include a link (there's a thread here somewhere about it).  I'm sure the mods would appreciate it if you'll modify that.  Nice scheme choice, by the way, though I shuddered when I saw the red-trimmed fins of the missile!

 

The first thought I had when I read your opening plan was, "Oh dear, is he going to try to make resin wheel wells fit?"  Not that I have first-hand experience, but I've most definitely seen the trouble and strife in other build-threads for this kit!  The most I've done is looked at and maybe test-fitted the wings, and was immediately frightened by them, and that's just using kit parts.  Good plan to "test destroy" the resin bits before you mess with the kit plastic.

 

bob

[treker_ed]

@Mark V The bit about airliners.net is in the announcements bit, at the top of the landing page of the forum...

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235012328-airlinersnet-and-copyright/

[Farmerboy]

Definitely attach the bulges to there respective halves before joining the fuselage, worked fine for me in a recent build.

[Tango 2016]

I am glad you posted this build. I just purchased this kit yesterday.

[Paul Thompson]

Yup, been there and done that with the Aires sets, bought separately for the original Airfix issue, and the wheel wells were a nightmare, but to be fair that's true of most older resin aftermarket bits. Or at least the ones I've used. These days I'm a lot cheaper, but also have more references, so use scraps of plastic and lead wire.

 

I've seen folk recently knocking this kit for level of detail and fit of parts, but remember how well it was received on first issue, and still have a couple to do. Just don't expect Tamiya fit, and remember how many other people do a 1/48th Lightning that doesn't cost an arm or leg. That's for anyone else used only to recent kits. You look to be making a much better job than I did, anyway.

 

Lookig back over the thread - the way I recall it was also that white glue was fine with lead, CA was not. And plasticine is right out if you expect the model to last more than a decade (altough some I have which is 60 years old has turned into little rocks).

 

Paul.