Tour de Airfix

Wow! That’s amazing 🤩 My great uncle was a gunner on a British B-24 in the closing years of the war, so I’ve been attracted to the Liberator ever since hearing of his stories when I was a boy. Last year I had opportunity to serve as a guide at my local US Navy Airfield Museum from where B-24s flew hunting submarines over the Atlantic. We had videos running continuously in the museum and the one which has been embedded in memory is of a walkthrough the aircraft in flight. That walk along the ‘bridge’ between the bombs must have been an experience!

From my understanding the H and J are so similar you’d probably not notice the differences between what would be the Emerson and Consolidated A-6 front turrets, certainly not at this scale. So, unless you are looking to enter it into some scale modelling competition where the judges would pick you up on such an obscure detail, I would push on with the Airfix kit as is and build in the colours of your chosen aircraft for your own enjoyment. Now if your chosen B-24 had the earlier greenhouse nose, that would have been a totally different prospect! I recently built the Airfix B-17 and had a similar dilemma finding I needed the earlier version without the nose turret for my chosen aircraft and so went off and bought the Academy kit to complete my build. I ended up with my chosen aircraft being a kit which I didn’t like while the Airfix model was finished with a compromise set of decals. Had I had my time over again, I’d have used my original decals on the later Airfix kit and been happy, as only the very very few may have spotted the discrepancy but for the rest (and me) it would have been an excellent model in memory of those who flew all B-17s from that, my squadron of choice 😊

What a great idea. Having one of these in my stash I’m really enjoying following your build. 👍 Like you, my plan is to do something different. I have in mind building it as one of the Special Ops Liberators from 223 (Bomber Support) Squadron, 100 Group which took part in the Electronic War. I’ve still got quite a bit of research to complete first.

I’ve built four 1:72 scale B-24 Liberators over the past years and all have ended tail-sitters. Minicraft, Academy and a couple of the original Airfix kits. I did attempt to fill the nose of last Academy kit with sufficient lead to overcome this but, unbelievably, the nose wheel collapsed under the weight. I eventually removed the lead when structural faults started to appear where the nose joined the fuselage! The Airfix kit came with a crew ladder installed at the rear which when lowered was intended to keep the tail off the ground. I have heard rumour that something similar had to be used on the tail of the real aircraft and that it was most stable when loaded with bombs!

I agree with Sailorman, can never have enough and I can now see a need for me to buy another! 😊

I'd love it if we could have a new mould Hunter .. such an iconic aircraft from our aviation history! I had a go at building a Black Arrow inspired Hunter as part of an Air Display Team project.

1:72 scale Standard Tilly, Bedford MWC & BSA M20 are now ready for their RAF Personnel. Oh yes, and I need to add a bit of mud and grass to their airfield base to conclude this D-Day Air Assault diorama … phew

Oh no guys 😢 Have you dropped an email to the Airfix team?

My D-Day Duo of Typhoon & Spitfire moves a step closer to completion with a coat of Vallejo PRU faded blue applied to the Spitfire 😊

I'm currently working through the Airfix D-Day Air Assault kit and having built the Hawker Typhoon (see the Aircraft section) ... ... next up is the construction of the Standard Tilly & BSA motorcycle. Coincidentally I built these a few years ago as part of the WWII RAF Bomber Re-supply set (the same vehicles I used in my "Spitfire Squadron" diorama I posted earlier in this thread) so I’m having a bit of a Blue Peter moment … i.e. “here’s one I prepared earlier” ! I must admit, I never remember the glazing being so prolific on the Tilly kit with both the screen, dash and driver footwell, and the roof, side panels and doors. What I like about this though, is the fact that the plastic can be so much thinner than when screen and windows are provided as separate pieces and so look very much more realistic. Having recently built more 1:35 scale kits, I also can't quite get over how small these are. Great fun though 😊

To be honest it’s probably closer to Operation Market Garden! I’m certainly now looking forward to marking a start of the diorama bits, and look forward to seeing how you get on too 👍

Time for the Airfix Spitfire PR.XIX from the Club’s 1:72 D-Day Duo. I know it’s not a Typhoon but even Scalemates catalogue the Duo set against the Typhoon, and I can see why I had forgotten what a disappointingly simple kit this Spitfire is. I think it’s based on 2009/10 tooling but it’s a far cry from the quality and detail of the Hawker Typhoon, its partner in this duo kit. This is the kit that Airfix somehow dropped in a fighter jet pilot of dubious scale. Fortunately I’ve a plethora of unused WW2 pilots to hand. As I know this kit is far from a looker with its wheels down … the undercarriage and wheel bays lacking in any detail, I’m going to place this model flying wheels up above my D-Day Assault Typhoon diorama. Being so simple I’m close to finished after a couple of hours. I’m going to let the glue on these bits cure over night then will fit the propeller and then wings to fuselage. If memory serves me correct, the latter is going to need quite a bit of tape and another glue curing session to get all the gaps closed up. This will obviously give me chance to build some of the vehicles and make a start on the diorama base 😊

Thank you, Sailorman, I just love this Airfix Sea King kit. The options of how to build and finish them seem endless. Had I room and the time in my build schedule I’d like to have a go at the new larger scale one, but 1:72 is really large enough for me with the storage space I have available. With this pair, you may notice that the one on the ground is how 824 NAS sailed from Portsmouth and the one in flight, stripped of its anti submarine equipment, fitted with waist gunner and blacked out markings, is how it was when operating over the Falklands.

Ditto, Heather, this has been a favoured pastime of mine too 😊

That’s amazing .. I’m now wondering if I’ve a Men’s Shed near me who’d be interested in the same 🤔

😂 no way! Even the pictures I took look green 🤦‍♂️. Well at least this means all is still well in the world of Airfix 😆

Wow, that’s so old school Revell

Interesting to see this moulded in green plastic. I can’t recall ever having an Airfix aircraft not in the standard grey or white for perhaps the Concorde and Sunderland. I’m guessing it’s because it’s top side is camouflaged? 🤔

Excellent 👌 I remember having these when I was little. So wish now that I kept them. Ditto also for the many boxes of the others in the range.

@john redman I have to disagree. This kit doesn’t even come close, for one, it is devoid of even the D-Day stripes that even a history GCSE student would spot. Let’s say you went to a restaurant and ordered a nice sirloin steak and was served a bit of rump, and when you queried it the chef came and said, “it’s still from a cow”. Would you be happy to accept that or think, yes it’s from a cow, but not the right part of the cow? 🤷‍♂️ @Sailorman I couldn’t agree more. I’ve probably made as many kits with alternative schemes as I built with the decals provided. One of my favourite alternative schemes is probably a set of Falklands War anti submarine Sea Kings which I built in the colours of a squadron good friend of mine served with and to mirror one he actually worked on. I used a couple of the yellow air sea rescue kits, filled in windows and added torpedoes and guns to reflect the changes they went through during the conflict. Michael Clegg did a piece on them back in March 2022 for his Workbench Blog. I was most proud 😊 https://uk.airfix.com/community/blog-and-news/workbench/mitchells-masterpiece-inherits-griffon-power

Don’t get me wrong, I think they do a great job … and a thankless one which the number of armchair historians (me included) out there with their own ideas 😂

The first part of this question is probably a bit hard for most of us to answer, but I feel it leads very much into the second, as I have found on many an occasion, I’m more interested in obtaining the kit to recreate a subject of my choosing rather than that Airfix suggest. I have also found some of our Airfix team’s research into the subjects they choose to recreate in model for leaves much to be desired. The most recent example of poor research, or at best being economic with the truth, has been my build of the Typhoon in the 75th Anniversary D-Day Air Assault Set A50157A. This includes a lovely selection of vehicles, ground crew and diorama base depicting a Typhoon being rearmed during June 1944 D-Day operations. The decals provided for the Typhoon to complete this D-Day scene, are however, for an aircraft which wasn’t delivered until August (MP126), for a pilot (S/Ldr Stapleton) who didn’t fly the aircraft until September and in a colour scheme (underside stripes and spinner) which was not adopted until October! Now, some may say I’m being over sensitive but for me the backstory to every model is as equally important as the quality of the kit I’m building, and if Airfix is creating a kit to remember a specific historical event, then it shouldn’t be beyond them to at least select something that was actually there and thus factually correct 😢 It’s normal for me to have clear idea on e.g. the theme, pilot or squadron for an aircraft I want to build and if Airfix make the kit for that subject, I’ll buy it and only if the decals align do I use them. For the new B-24 Liberator, for instance, I have a number of ideas on how I’d like to finish this, and so far, none match those Airfix have provided. I hate to admit that I have 100s of after market decals in my stash because one never gets just a single set of decals one’s after, these are normally included in a set of many 🤦‍♂️ What do you normally do, build out of the box or go your own way. Does anyone perhaps have any inside knowledge on how Airfix research and choose subjects for their models and while I know of more, have you also had that thought of “oh no Airfix, whose done your research here?”

That’s a stunning picture. I’m a regular visitor to the Tank Museum, there being 2 scale model shows hosted there makes it a double bubble museum to visit.

Interesting to see the new Mustang produced with sprue runners without a frame … less plastic waste 🤔👍

That is really interesting! 👍