Halifax Undercarriage

[Poloboy]

Hello Everyone, this is my first post on the Forum, I've been modelling for many years and enjoy it still. Does anyone have a set of Undercarriage parts ie Messier Legs for my Halifax Kit, the ones that came with it are not suitable it was Pre owned unbuilt but the parts were badly moulded. I've converted the kit into a Halton Freight Carrier having scratch built a Pannier and blanked off the mid upper and rear turret plus removed the Randome Fairing, could anyone help please. Many Thanks 

[peebeep]

Your best bet would be from somebody who has done one of the Revell MkII new tooling kits, it has both types of leg, so there will be one going spare. Scale Aircraft Conversions do an undercarriage set in white metal, but it's rather expensive.

[Peter s]

If you're really stuck you could always do it wheels up and mount the model on a stand? With the wheels retracted a cra**y set of undercarriage legs is less of an issue.

[Poloboy]

Hello All

I've just learnt that I cannot obtain any spare parts for my Halifax Kit as they are no longer available  I'm amazed that this is the case as WW2 Aircraft are extremely popular Kits to build and the Bomber Range has always been a good seller, The Lancaster is still produced by Revell and Matchbox as is the Halifax so why has Airfix deleted the Kit? The Halifax was always the underdog and clearly Airfix have followed the trend.. Why? 

[Pretty Mediocre Modeller]

Firstly, I don't think that the Lancaster is still produced by Matchbox, did you mean Hasegawa?

Second, the Airfix Halifax is very old and not up to modern standards. It was given a release a few years ago and was really showing it's age. All kit manufacturers don't keep their toolings in production full time. Airfix may have decided to retire their Halifax permanently, or they may bring it back at a later date, or (hopefully) bring out a new tooling to the standards of the Wellington, Lancaster and Whitley. There is another manufacturer who makes a decent modern tooled Hercules engine Halifax, don't go near their Merlin engine version though!

[Dad Paul B]

The last release of the Halifax was nearly 10 years ago. Spares are usually kept for a while after release but represent dead space in the storage facility so they will tend to be cleared out after a moderate interval after the production run.

I built this a couple of years ago and one half of one of the horizontal stabilisers was missing, spares had gone by then so I scratch built a replacemetn from plasticard. The tooling dates to 1960 and was pretty tired; lots of flash and the transparencies had lost nearly all of their surface detail from repolishing. It was a very advanced kit for its time, the landing gear looks like it is supposed to be retractable with moving doors as well as control surfaces.

I think you may need to go the metal gear route or close the doors so you only need the wheels as suggested above.

[Peter s]

Airfix's excellent Lancaster BIII sells out almost as quickly as they get stock in. A new tool Halifax would be a very popular kit. As others have said the "current" version is nearly 20 years older than me and the moulds are plain worn out. The JU-88 is in the same boat.... I built one earlier this year and was on the verge of being unbuildable. That one also desperately needs the new tool treatment. That was another kit where in theory the landing gear could rotate and then retract (like a P40). Very sophisticated back in the day.

[JDH]

Hello Poloboy,

Do you still need the under carriages. Many years ago a bought some incomplete sets and may have them available