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Fairey Firefly Mk.1


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1771 Sqn FAA, HMS IMPLACABLE, British Pacific Fleet, Truk Lagoon, 1945.

The Rolls Royce Griffon-powered Firefly Mk 1 continued the FAA policy of large 2-seat Fighter-Reconnaisance aircraft, started with the Hawker Osprey. Built to replace the Fulmar, it was a far better aircraft, particularly well suited to open sea and long range warfare in the Pacific. Fireflys scored a number of air to air successes, but their main contribution came from their surface attack capability, using bombs or rockets; later aircraft also included radar equipped anti surface and night fighter versions.

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The aircraft modelled was flown by 1771 Sqn's commanding officer, Lt Cdr R MacWhirter. The Firefly Mk 1 entered service in 1943 and remained until the early stages of the Korea War when it was replaced by the Firefly Mks 4, 5, 6 and 7.

Frog's Firefly is a pretty old kit, but has usually been relatively easy to obtain from eastern European sources, with Eastern Express the most recent Russian company to issue it; the moulds are holding up relatively well, albeit with some flash evident on the soft grey plastic.

All in all, it is a pretty simple kit, with all the virtues and shortfalls expected of Frog's output in the early 1970s; reasonably accurate in outline, but short on detail. Panel lines are delicately raised; wheel wells need boxing in. Cabin/cockpit detail is minimal (about the same as Airfix give you in their Firefly V kit) so I added some simple seats and radio cabinets, as well as a larger deck for the after cockpit. One nice touch is that the lower wing halves are split along the complex wing fold line, which would make it easier to either cut the upper wing for a fold, or even to extend the distinctive Fairey-Youngman flaps if one felt so inclined. My wings went together well with only minimal gaps, as did the fuselage.

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Where the kit does fall down is with the transparencies; mine were very badly moulded (I suspect serious corrosion of the mould) with rough surfaces and lots of flash. I attempted to clean them up, carefully removing the flash and dipping in Klear to restore the translucency. However, although they were eventually just about useable, vacformed alternatives are easily available from Falcon (whose comprehensive FAA set is clearly targeted at ex-Frog kits and well worth buying), so I used them instead.

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Undercarriage and wheels are somewhat spindly, and the one piece spinner-propeller is rather toy-like in appearance. I was also suspicious of the kit's chunky rocket rails at first, until I discovered some references showing that they are indeed the solid shape provided (they include blast shields for the wing).

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Decals are well printed, offering two marking schemes (one British Pacific Fleet and one Dutch Navy). They have a very matt finish and are suspiciously thin, on rather rough backing paper. I fully expected them to crack, but despite having very little stretch or give, they actually went on very nicely, had reasonable colour density and little carrier film. Unfortunately, the white borders on the BPF roundels were badly out of register, something that was only really obvious once they were applied. I used some spares from a Modeldecal set to replace the problem areas. I also think that the "275" side number is slightly too large, not least because it doesn't really fit in the available space!

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The "Evelyn Tentions" scheme provided in the kit is identical to that currently worn by the FAA Museum's Firefly. Its not actually the same aircraft (the museum one is a repainted target tug), but provides some useful references. Note that the colour of the lettering is different. Unfortunately, Eastern Express don't actually provide any sort of decalling or painting guide, apart from the illustrations on the box. After checking my references I believe that the box top picture is incorrect, as my reference pictures of Evelyn Tentions don't have the white band on the spinner (and neither does the FAA museum's aircraft). The wire aerial fit on the box is also wrong; whilst some Firefly wire aerials did extend onto the engine cowling as shown, again, my reference pictures show that this was not the case with this aircraft.

The FAA Museum's Firefly in the same markings:

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Excellent model,it's great to see such nice model being produced from one of these old kits. having said that I remember the original Frog kit being released.I guess that makes me old as well. :S

Malcolm

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Very well done! I have the Novo release in my stash and have done for longer than I can remember. One of the things that made me twitch was the two part rear canopy - may have to invest in that Falcon set then! I have the Ian Huntley series of articles from SAM ready for the day I commit scalpel to plastic!

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GREAT looking build of a classic kit...a bit of nostalgia, eh?

Cheers,

ggc

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