Thundering Typhoons! Brengun car door and Airfix bubble top Typhoons

[Johnson]

A 1/72 Hawker Typhoon is a serious omission from my collection. This has been languishing in the stash since it came out in 2013.

 

 

The plastic looks OK,

 

 

I recall reading about this kit and it's slightly unusual design with the wheel bays forming the lower parts of the cockpit and being an important structural part of the wings. I think its a good design but it means some thinking about the painting before joining parts together.

(Yes, I know, nasty mold ejection marks).

 

As usual, we start with the cockpit. Additions here are the Yahu instrument panel, the Special Hobby 3D print seat and gun sight (yet to be added). There are lots of posts about Typhoon cockpit colours, but very few colour photos of the real thing, or actual cockpits to look in. There are some good threads featuring a cockpit section at Duxford on the LSP site. I've painted the cockpit and seat as described by Chris Thomas and others in the BM threads. Airfix would have you paint everything with Humbrol 78 - interior green. Pah.

 

The Yahu i/p is pretty good. This example looks a bit tatty, especially enlarged this much, as I've been messing about with it too much. What you see here is a mix of Yahu (the i/p and compass) and Airfix (the side panels and compass holder). I replaced the tube the compass attaches to.

 

Looks better in situ.

And let's face it, it's never going to be seen again anyway (but I enjoyed it).

 

Next steps; get the fuselage closed and the wings on. Will they fit?

 

Until next time,

 

Charlie

 

 

 

 

 

[Keeff]

Oh, who doesn't like a Typhoon? 

 

Nice work so far .... and as for those ejection marks .... couldn't be in a worse place! 

 

Keith ☺️ 

[Johnson]

16 hours ago, Keeff said:

those ejection marks .... couldn't be in a worse place!

Absolutely Keith! I suppose with the complex nature of the part, Airfix had to compromise somewhere. I thought about fixing them but it would have been incredibly difficult. Shame, but I'll have to live with them, and they won't get seen much.

 

Right... the wings - or how to complicate things!🙄

 

Airfix give us gun bays, which I quite like.

If you compare these to Airfix's 1/24 Typhoon offering, (only the following year in 2014 - maybe they looked in the real things?) these 1/72 gun bays seem pretty naff.

 

The real things;

 

Special Hobby to the rescue!

Absolutely beautiful! But why bright orange resin? Makes painting harder.

 

And some serious surgery needed on the wings.

 

Wish me luck.

 

Charlie

[Keeff]

Good luck! 

 

Those resin parts look the dogs bits which I think shows the limitations of injecton moulding as smaller scales. 

 

I did check the 1/24th gun bays ....  nice!  That led me to read the build thread as I have the kit in the not-a-stash stash waiting it's turn. 

 

Keith ☺️ 

[Johnson]

Progress...

 

The Special Hobby gun bay went into the wing with some surgery and lots of dry fitting along the way.

 

The bubble top Tiffie is nearly ready for paint.

 

On 7/17/2025 at 10:24 AM, Keeff said:

Those resin parts look the dogs bits which I think shows the limitations of injecton moulding as smaller scales. 

 

 

I agree Keith - for 1/72 the detail and quality of these gun bays is quite something.

A bit of grubbiness needed.

 

But paint will have to wait. This just landed from King Kit ...

Interesting box art.  'Sqn Ldr Jiří Maňák was one of only a few Czechoslovak airman who flew Hawker Typhoons... He led 198 Sqn until Aug 1943, when he was shot down off the Dutch coast and had to land his aircraft on the water. Allegedly, he was one of only three RAF pilots who survived ditching in Typhoon'.

 

The Brengun car door Typhoon is supposed to be the best in 1/72, although the fit gets some bad reports (we'll see).

 

Parts look very nice.

 

And spotted on ebay, £4.79 with free delivery.

 

With the superb 1974 Arthur Bentley plans.

 

Both kits agree well with the plans, the Brengun probably having a slight edge over Airfix.

 

My aim is to get the car door Typhoon to the same stage as the Airfix bubble top, then paint them at the same time. Sounds a bit ambitious to me.

 

Charlie

[Dave Wilko]

Gentlemen,one is in complete agreement with Hendie there.

Having worked in engineering for many years,modern computer controlled CNC machines are extremely capable of producing very,very high quality therefore very expensive tooling for injection moulding and many other applications.

 

Cost is indeed the limiting factor in all cases,the higher the level of detail and finesse,the more skilled the programmer needs to be,the longer the machining time,the more expensive the machining tools(cutting tips,tool holders,etc)the more expensive the steel,

the more man hours to operate the machine and so on.

 

There are virtually no "limitations"of injection moulding in today's engineering world,it is indeed very much down to the customer to stipulate the level of detail they require.

[Keeff]

2 hours ago, hendie said:

I wish people would stop propagating this falsehood.

It was an innocent comment ..... 

 

Engineering was not my chosen profession hence my lack of knowledge, which is now improved thanks to your post 👍 

 

Keith ☺️ 

Edited July 27 by Keeff

[hendie]

25 minutes ago, Keeff said:

It was an innocent comment ..... 

I completely understand.

Like I said, I was not trying to be rude, but this comment and comments like it are littered around this forum. People pick up on it and repeat it, and the cycle continues, and the fact of the matter is that it's simply not true.

 

Every now and then I feel I should step in and offer some insight and today was one of those days 😄

[Johnson]

Prop and spinner on the Airfix Typhoon.

 

An interesting method of attaching it, but it seems to work, and it spins!

 

 

But the backplate a tiny bit small for the fuselage. Difficult to remedy.

 

Charlie

[bigbadbadge]

Looking good Charlie, nice project. I've got the Airfix Tiffie sat next to my desk ready to be started, I will do mine with closed panels I think.

 

Great work so far, the gun bays look fantastic . 

Chris

 

[Johnson]

20 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

I will do mine with closed panels I think

 

Thanks Chris, I'm only doing the one bay. They are a bit of a gimmick, but I was so impressed with the SH bays I got won over.

 

I won't bother adding the other one to the Brengun wing.

 

Charlie

[Johnson]

Progress...

 

For the 'car-door' Typhoon I'm going to have the door open, it will give a good view into the cockpit which otherwise never gets seen.

You can just see on the port side door that Brengun unfortunately located the door latch on the wrong side (the stbd is the same). A bit of re-scribing I think.

 

Brengun's panel lines are generally excellent. But in awkward areas, the angle of the mould I guess, they are still filled with plastic and it's a raised panel line;

 

It's in such a prominent location it has to be re-scribed and only way I can repair it is to make a plasticard template that I stick to the fuselage with double-sided tape to guide the scribing tool;

 

Seems to have worked OK, a few more to do however.

 

I'm almost ready to finish the cockpit, but I can't decide whether to leave it entirely grey-green or add black in the upper half.

I think black is most likely, but waiting for Chris Thomas' Wingleader Typhoon book to arrive (tomorrow ) as it may help me decide.

 

Charlie

 

[Johnson]

Back to the bubble top.

 

 Or more precisely it's RP-3 rockets. Neither the Airfix or Brengun RP3s are that great, so looked at aftermarket. Not many, actually only LF Models;

'Recommended for any Tempest, Typhoon, Hurricane, Mosquito.' I guess no one told them they generally carried 8 rockets.  I'll have to 'improve' a couple of the kit ones.

 

Being 3D printed you have to separate them from their gantry...

Not easy and a couple of the very thin fins chipped.

 

But they are quite nice.

The tail isn't quite right and shouldn't taper under the fins.

 

They have the cut-out in the warhead (something to do with screwing the head to the body?).

 

There's a good BM thread on RP-3s here. I've borrowed (links) a couple of the pics posted;

 

 

Charlie

[GREG DESTEC]

Lovely work on your Tiffies. I've built both of these kits and they look great when completed. A word of warning for the Brengun kit though. In my example the wheel wells were way too tall and would not permit the wings to fit to the fuselage. Much sanding was needed to the point of the "roof" of the wells being almost transparent. Careful how you go at that stage. Looking forward to more progress.

 

Kind regards Greg 

[Keeff]

Oh, nice work.  I have some describing to do and I like your little technique (duly noted!) 

 

Keith ☺️ 

[Chuck1945]

After still recurring nightmares from assembling Aires rockets for a Beaufighter almost 30 years ago, I would happily choose the 3D printed versions. 
 

Very nice pair of Tiffies Charlie 

[Johnson]

5 hours ago, GREG DESTEC said:

Lovely work on your Tiffies. I've built both of these kits and they look great when completed. A word of warning for the Brengun kit though. In my example the wheel wells were way too tall and would not permit the wings to fit to the fuselage. Much sanding was needed to the point of the "roof" of the wells being almost transparent. Careful how you go at that stage. Looking forward to more progress.

Many thanks Greg. You're quite right, I've had to reduce the roof of the wheel wells considerably. You prompted me to do something I should have done ages ago, a dry assembly to check the fit. I'm really liking this kit but I guess being limited run it needs quite a bit of adjustment with the sanding sticks!

 

4 hours ago, Keeff said:

Oh, nice work.  I have some describing to do and I like your little technique (duly noted!) 

 

Cheers Keith. Still some scribing to do - I keep finding panel lines that need a bit of help.

 

1 hour ago, Chuck1945 said:

After still recurring nightmares from assembling Aires rockets for a Beaufighter almost 30 years ago, I would happily choose the 3D printed versions. 
 

Very nice pair of Tiffies Charlie 

Thanks Chuck - I'm enjoying them!

 

Dry assembly. Finally together after a lot of 'adjustment'.

 

Chris Thomas' Wingleader Typhoon books arrived yesterday, they're so good it's hard to put them down and do any actual modelling! They've helped me decide that a Typhoon built by Gloster in Apr-May 1943 would most probably have had a black upper cockpit:

 

I've done so many adjustments on the cockpit frame and bulkheads I'd have probably been better starting from scratch. But they're mostly done and I take my hat off to the Brengun team, they must have worked very hard on this model in an attempt (largely successful) to get the Typhoon details right.

 

I've removed all the frame and head armour from the rear bulkhead. Although nicely done, it was all too low - probably to fit under the kit canopy. I'll be using a vacuform canopy which will give the head armour a bit more space. I'll add the instrument panel but leave the seat until the fuselage is joined.

 

Charlie

 

 

[bigbadbadge]

Nice work Charlie,  they are coming on well and looking good.

Chris

[Johnson]

On 8/10/2025 at 6:40 PM, bigbadbadge said:

Nice work Charlie,  they are coming on well and looking good.

 

 

Thanks Chris, getting there. 

 

So what progress?

 

The cockpit is more or less complete.

The Brengun i/p was good, but I do like the Yahu i/p. The side panels, throttle and compass holder were all scratched (compass face is Yahu). The seat belt needs to go above the seat and anchor behind the armour on the fuselage, so all best left till later.

 

Fuselage closed.

No locating lugs/holes and the two sides didn't align very well, so sections was closed one at a time.

 

Wings were a bit of a nightmare.

The wheel wells have to be reduced considerably or the wing halves won't join together. The landing lights are too narrow, the top hole goes back too far and they have no internal walls in the wings. The cannons are a mess (Master A/M replacements?)

 

Wings together, but the dihedral needed some adjustment...

 

Removing plastic until the dihedral and fit is OK.

 

And commit to TET fed into the join!

Some sellotape to help. 

 

This isn't exactly a 'shake and bake' kit.

 

Charlie

 

 

 

[bigbadbadge]

Looking good Charlie, well fought

Chris

[perdu]

This looks brilliant Charlie, those rockets remind me why I made my ancient Frog Tiffie as a car door Bombphoon. 

 

Far less agonising work under the wings  

[Chuck1945]

It is coming along nicely.

 

I’m wondering if a car door Typhoon could be done using the Brengun prop, small tailplanes and canopy on the Airfix kit. The doors would need to be scribed and for sanity’s sake modeled closed.

[Johnson]

On 8/17/2025 at 10:11 PM, bigbadbadge said:

Looking good Charlie, well fought

 

 

Thanks Chris - Fought is very appropriate!

 

Did I mention the fit is a bit dodgy?

Very carefully clamped with my dad's old engineering vice. Shouldn't have to do this, but It was the only way to get the the rear tab of the wing to align with the fuselage. The vice gives a very good degree of control. Fed in TET and left it overnight.

 

No fixing tabs on the tailplanes which made attaching them a bit tricky. And they needed some re-scribing. The things at the back are the trim tab controls (I think) but they are only on the underside.

 

Still quite a lot of tidying up to do.

 

9 hours ago, perdu said:

This looks brilliant Charlie, those rockets remind me why I made my ancient Frog Tiffie as a car door Bombphoon. 

 

 Thanks Bill (I hope I got that right). Will be a Bombphoon with 500LB bombs.

 

2 hours ago, Chuck1945 said:

I’m wondering if a car door Typhoon could be done using the Brengun prop, small tailplanes and canopy on the Airfix kit. The doors would need to be scribed and for sanity’s sake modeled closed.

 

I sit here with the Airfix Typhoon in front of me thinking much the same. But despite it's challenges the Brengun Typhoon has a lot going for it. It's probably more accurate than the Airfix and matches Arthur Bentley's plans extremely well, so much so that I'm thinking they probably used them.

 

And that's about as far as these are going to get for a while... the Hawker Hurricane STGB beckons!

 

Back in a little while.

 

Charlie

[perdu]

13 hours ago, Johnson said:

Thanks Bill (I hope I got that right). Will be a Bombphoon with 500LB bombs.

Right in all aspects Charlie, great decision.

[GREG DESTEC]

Well done 👍