How do Airfix select a subject for their models? Do you always use their decals and painting instructions?

[Tour de Airfix]

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?”

[john redman]

Dunno but that is a bit rivet-county to my mind. It's a western front Typhoon at the end of the day. It's labelled D Day to reflect that it depicts types used at that time. If the box said "Western Front", presumably it would be uncontroversial... 🙂

They are better than they used to be. Going back to me yoof, consider the original Dogfight Doubles. 1943 Spitfire versus Messerschmitt 110 captured in 1940; 1944 Me109G versus Beaufighter lost in 1943; MiG-15 no longer in Egyptian service in 1967 versus Mirage first used by the IAF in 1967; and let's not forget the Cessna O2A versus MiG-21 variant never operated by the NVAF. Then there was the splendid El Alamein battlefront set; the German defence forces included an SdKfz234/4 armoured car, a vehicle seen only from  1944, in Europe. 

It says D Day on the box because casual / impulse buyers have heard of D Day 🙂

Edited April 14 by john redman

[Sailorman]

I rarely build using the schemes included in the box.  Makes life more interesting and I end up with a model slightly different to everyone else's......as you can see from recent my DC10 and TriStar.

[SD45elect2000]

It’s still a nice looking model, I’d display it in a different context and find decals that work for D Day and build another.

 

i only use kit decals when it’s a scheme I don’t have. 

 

Randall

[Tour de Airfix]

 @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

[peebeep]

4 hours ago, Tour de Airfix said:

have you also had that thought of “oh no Airfix, whose done your research here?”

You're making an assumption, I would suggest, that the researcher might be as geeky as you (or myself) are. They may have inadvertently come across a source reference that is dodgy. You (or I) might make an instant connection - it can't be D-Day the stripes would be on upper and lower surfaces - but to a non-hobbyist, non-geek they have a reference that says it's D-Day. It's a day job and in day jobs stuff happens, except in this case it's not a matter of life and death. You could try explaining all this to the average Joe and they might feel justified in thinking you're a bit obsessive and cranky. I say this in jest (honestly), because I used to get exercised in the same manner until it came to a point in thinking, hey does this really matter? In a eureka moment the answer flashed up in large letters 'nope!', the average dude doesn't give a stuff. Nowadays when I come across stuff like you describe I just go 'tut, never mind' and move on.  

[LTSR_NSE]

2 hours ago, Tour de Airfix said:

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.

As a person who studied 20th century History (inc WWII) at GCSE**, we just about covered that tanks & planes were involved, but certainly not specific vehicle types, let alone squadron/pilot markings on an individual plane.

Your interest goes way deeper/beyond the level which you attribute to general education - which is perhaps an indication of why expectation isn’t being met.

I hold no opinion on how much research should be undertaken by model manufacturers - considering that I am mostly a magpie purchaser & choose to conduct research into real vehicles/events as an entirely separate activity.

**more than a couple of decades ago!

[Ratch]

I can explain one example because i attended the launch for the 1/48 Sea King. The subject was identified as a desirable one and the Airfix team worked closely with the helicopter museum at Chard in Somerset, along with the Royal Navy and Westland, plus ex-servicemen who had flown the type. Maybe this subject had more intense research than others, but not every subject will have information readily to hand. One error that jars with me was that the Boulton Paul Defiant model with markings of 151 Sqn at Wittering, 1943 was described as in Cambridgeshire!!! Wittering was in Northamptonshire until 1968 when county borders were changed! But I suspect that not a lot of people know (or care) about that.

Sometimes I use the kit markings, but mostly I model subjects of particular interest to me and have to buy aftermarket decals or make up from generic sheets.

[Sailorman]

11 hours ago, Tour de Airfix said:

 @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

Wow .... Brilliant idea how to set up that display of the to choppers ...... I had missed that. They look great.

[Heather Kavanagh]

As most of you know I have a very specific theme - operational aircraft in the North West European theatre from 1 January to 31 December 1940.

Quite often, this apparently narrow theme means I can’t use whatever markings or schemes come in the box. I spend a fair amount of time digging around to find a specific aircraft in my references and online, and then build that, or something close. Sometimes, I get lucky and the kit is correct for the period, but I am really not averse to ploughing my own furrow if needs be.

 

[Tour de Airfix]

3 hours ago, Heather Kavanagh said:

I am really not averse to ploughing my own furrow if needs be.

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

[Tour de Airfix]

4 hours ago, Sailorman said:

Wow .... Brilliant idea how to set up that display of the to choppers ...... I had missed that. They look great.

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. 

[john redman]

14 hours ago, LTSR_NSE said:

As a person who studied 20th century History (inc WWII) at GCSE**, we just about covered that tanks & planes were involved, but certainly not specific vehicle types, let alone squadron/pilot markings on an individual plane.

I can confirm that's still a thing. My daughters both did GCSE history and neither of them has heard of the Spitfire. They've seen Spitfire models aplenty in their lives in the house, they've been taken to Shuttleworth on flying days, they've done the Airfix make and take several times, but they can't tell a Spitfire from a soup spoon.

We were at the beach last summer and from the sky I heard a distant but magical, blood-stirring sound, one to make your hair stand on end. I said "I can hear a Spitfire!...where is it? Look! Look! There it is! A Spitfire!"

Melissa: "Like, what's a, like, Spitfire?"

Olivia: "Is it, like, a bomber?" 

They returned to their phones. 

It was over West Wittering beach. I'm not sure where it would have been flying from. On a sunny day, when it turned away presenting its underside it was invisible. Grey paint really does work! 

Edited April 15 by john redman

[john redman]

6 hours ago, Ratch said:

Sometimes I use the kit markings, but mostly I model subjects of particular interest to me and have to buy aftermarket decals or make up from generic sheets.

Yup, although even here you can actually end up failing to see the wood for the trees if you aren't careful.

My current thing is Dogfight Doubles They Never Made But Shoulda. The rules are, one Series 1 and Series 2 kit (or two Series 1 if WW1), and it doesn't matter if either has since been reboxed into a higher series, as long as that tooling was 1 or 2 originally.

To create these, sometimes you can pair two kits with the standard decals, e.g. Hannover CL.III versus DH.4; Hellcat versus Dinah. This is what Airfix usually did, hence anachronisms like the 1940 Bf110 and 1943 JE@J, although in two cases - Cessna/MiG and Mirage/MiG - Airfix provided different decals to make the pair work as a pair (although, as noted above, they still don't). 

Often my DFDTNMBS pairs require different decals for one or both aircraft. The Swordfish versus FIAT G50 pairing is fine out of the box, as is the Whirlwind versus Arado 196, but for the Buffalo versus PE2 I need FiAF decals for the Buffalo, while for the Starfighter and HAL Gnat I need PAF and IAF decals.

I also have an F5A versus Jet Provost pair for which I need IRAF and IQAF decals. I spent ages searching online catalogues for the Iranian decals before realising that, er, the kit decals actually are Iranian...OK, IRAF rather than IIAF but I don't think there was a lot of difference. 

This is the kind of obvious thing only an obsessive could overlook.    

 

[Captain.Glumbo]

We've booked Tattershall Lakes for June, and it just happens (honest I didnt know!) to be opposite RAF Coningsby

 

It has a Spitfire in the grounds, and their bar is called "The Spitfire Bar"

 

We've been watching youtube reviews of the park, and one you can see a typhoon coming into land, and my wife says "ooo there's a spitfire".  Bless!

Edited April 15 by Captain.Glumbo

[null_null981707818191]

Be careful what you wish for... I share TdA's liking for research and I'm quite happy to purchase after-market decals in order to build a specific aircraft (see my various RAF Warmwell posts), but absolute historic accuracy is probably not what is going to attract the next generation of modellers to the hobby, but rather something that looks attractive or exciting or 'realistic' out of the box - and it's those purchasers who will ensure that Airfix has a future, and that we will be able to go on buying well-engineered kits at reasonable prices. In addition, having 'experts' on every subject is impossible in a finance limited workforce - and if getting absolute historical accuracy with every model means putting up the prices even higher, I'd rather let those nerds amongst us (me included) do our research and stuff, whilst keeping the cost of the original model as low as possible. For what it's worth, I think we are incredibly lucky at the moment - surely we are enjoying another 'Golden Age'.

[john redman]

When a Kittyhawk was found in the desert in 2012 it was instantly ID'ed as a "Spitifire"!

[Captain.Glumbo]

2 minutes ago, john redman said:

When a Kittyhawk was found in the desert in 2012 it was instantly ID'ed as a "Spitifire"!

That the one in Close Encounters? 🙂 

[SD45elect2000]

I build for myself, I have no one else to please. I began building as a housebound Crohn’s disease patient. I’m also a story teller that likes telling tales about my models whether it be trains, planes or misc. I just build what I like.
 

Randall 

[paul71]

2 hours ago, Captain.Glumbo said:

We've booked Tattershall Lakes for June, and it just happens (honest I didnt know!) to be opposite RAF Coningsby

If you are going there you have to call in and see the BBMF its well worth the money and you get nice and close to them and see the ground crews working on them and just outside is where they park the typhoons.

 

paul

[paul71]

If i haven't got the scheme that comes with the kit i would build that but i do have aftermarket decals which i will get around to using at some point as i have bought extra spitfires hurricanes and Messerschmitt's and other planes to do them.

On 14/04/2024 at 17:11, Tour de Airfix said:

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 kit to me would be better called operation overlord as it then represents a point within the battle, but as people are more commonly to know it as D-day the title makes sense as a selling point for airfix, to some people D-day is just that first day of the battle to a lot of other people and that is the way its seems to be taught now is that D-day includes all of the D-day +++ and is not just a single day anymore. overall i like the kit and must get around to building it.

[Tour de Airfix]

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 👍

[paul71]

You are probably right about that TDA but i would guess most people wouldn't know that name either so i think we would have to call it a bridge too far 😆

im a slow builder so it could take some time but you have got me thinking about it, i will see what tips i can get off you as you do yours👍

[Captain.Glumbo]

1 hour ago, paul71 said:

If you are going there you have to call in and see the BBMF its well worth the money and you get nice and close to them and see the ground crews working on them and just outside is where they park the typhoons.

 

paul

Yes, already in the plans.  Drop the boss off at some shopping, drop the car back and walk over for a couple of hours, then pick her back up for lunch.