Model Forum / General / Models / September 2006

When I started buying and building Airfix aircraft Fokker Dr.Is were
going for 29¢, P-38s,-40s,-51s for 39¢, Ansons and Beaufighters for 49¢,
Hudsons and Bostons for 89¢, B-25s for $1.09 and B-17s and B-24s for
$1.29.  When Craftmaster took over distribution we started to see some
stranger prices like the $1.63 B-17 and PBY.  The period here is
1963-66.  I'll let you figure out the shillings as it never made sense
to me. :)

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

I've had an interesting day!

I finally got hold of the new Airfix 1/48 Spitfire IX.  As some of you may
know ('cos I'm constantly wittering on about it) I build quite a few
Spitfires. I was very interested to see the new Airfix kit.  I have seen no
online reviews about it at all!

Well...  The first thing that strikes one on picking up the box is that it
is *very* heavy. As soon as one opens the box the reason becomes apparent.
There is a *lot* of plastic in this kit.  There are two complete wing
assemblies, which at first I found quite puzzling. It turns out that the
wing assembly from the Spitfire Vc is also included, simply because there
are a number of parts on the sprues that are needed for the MkIX.  Despite
Airfix's claims, this is not a *wholly* new kit.

Some people have commented on the sprue gates in the Airfix TSR2.  If you
thought that they were big, you want to see the ones in *this* kit.  The Vc
sprue gates are horrendously huge! The gates on the new sprues are better,
but not at all what one would expect on the 21st century. Early '70s
perhaps...  To be honest, the large gates don't really matter as long as you
cut the parts from the sprues.  The plastic has a very nice texture and cuts
easily.  Where the large gates may cause problems are for kids who tend to
tear or twist the parts off.  The plastic will definitely tear and leave a
scar.

The surface detailing on the new parts is really rather nice. The panel
lines are slightly deeper than the equivalent lines on the Hasegawa kit, but
they are by no means trenches. I like them. However, the detail parts
themselves are quite heavy and slightly crude. There are ten parts which go
to make the cockpit interior, plus a three part pilot figure. I have a feeli
ng that these parts came from the earlier Vc kit. Although they will build
into a busy looking cockpit, the parts have no finesse whatsoever. They will
be acceptable with a closed access door and canopy, but a lot of work will
be needed to display the door and canopy open (there is a seperate door part
to allow this).  I much preferred the cockpit parts from the Mk24 kit.

The spinner and airscrew are abysmal! The spinner is greatly oversized. The
propellor blades look like four breadknives!  Just awful. I suppose that the
blades could be reshaped, but I'm afraid that the only alternative with the
spinner is to buy a new one from Ultracast - which also solves the blade
problem.

The fuselage seems to be of scale length and has two alternative upper
cowlings - one for the Rolls-Royce engined MkIX and one for the Packard
engined MkXVI. A MkXVI *can* be built from the kit, but only in full
fuselage guise.

Obviously, I haven't built this kit yet, nor will I be doing so in the
future (sounds ominous, I know, but see later). However, I have done a quick
dry fit. The parts fit very well. As I've mentioned before, the fuselage
seems accurate. Sadly, the same cannot be said of the wings.

The planform is great. There are four sets of wingtips (standard, factory
clipped, field clipped and extended). There are three types of gunbay
covers. But the problem doesn't lie with the planform, it lies with the
cross section. The Spitfire wing was a triumph of engineering design. The
cross section and incidence change constantly along the span of the wing.
The tips actually have *negative* incidence. It is very important to capture
this feature - Airfix have tried valiantly to do so, but have just missed
the mark.

The wing on the earlier Vc was dreadful - it looked like a plank of wood! I
had a number of concerns about the wing on this new kit when I saw pictures
of the test shots on the Airfix website. It didn't look quite right but I
couldn't quite put my finger on the problem. Now that I have seen it, I know
what the problem is. The wing roots are far too deep. Not as deep as those
on the Academy MkXIV, but deeper than they should be, and it is quite
noticeable. The flaps are seperate items and the trailing edges are about
three scale inches thick! This thickness is shared by the tailplanes and
alternative rudders. There is detail in the wheel wells, but it is crude.
There is no detail whatsoever in the radiators, although the cooling flap is
moulded in the open position. The wing simply lacks the finesse that a
Spitfire wing should have.

As for the undercarriage doors...  I simply don't want to think about them.
Horrid!

The decals are nicely printed and in perfect register (unlike the decals in
the Mk24 kit!). They are very glossy indeed, but should look good under a
coat of flat varnish. I can't speak to the thickness of them.  There is a
lot of stencil data, which is good to see. The decal placement guide is on a
seperate sheet from the instructions and is printed in full colour on very
high quality paper.

I am neither impressed nor disappointed with the kit. It is a very
workmanlike kit and is ideal for a newcomer to the hobby. They will get
something that looks very like a Spitfire out of it. The problem for me is
that it is just not quite accurate enough to make it into the line-up with
the rest of the Spitfires on my display shelf. I could live with the
dreadful spinner and thick trailing edges - a visit to the Ultracast website
and an hour's work with file and wet & dry paper would solve both problems
adequately - but I'm afraid that I can't live with the far-too-thick wing. I
was looking forward to the forthcoming 70th anniversary composite kit which
features this MkIX, a Mk24 and a sepcial edition MkI, but now I think I'll
give it a miss. I'll stick with the Tamiya kit for MkIs and MkVs and the
Hasegawa kit for MkIXs. I know that the Hasegawa kit has problems
lengthwise, but they don't detract from the appearance nearly as much as the
thick wing does from the Airfix kit.

All-in-all, it is not a *bad* kit. It just seems to be a retrograde step
from the Mk24, which is one of my favourite kits. I think it is an ideal kit
for those just starting out in the hobby, who may not be quite as anal about
the wing as I am. The problem is that it costs eleven quid. Is that the sort
of "pocket-money" price range that a kid starting out could afford?

As I said above, I'm not going to actually build it - at least not as a
MkIX. I have a number of Mk24 kits that I bought as parts-only at a
knock-down price. The fuselage on the new MkIX is very nice, so I am going
to combine it with a Mk24 to build a Mk21. Sadly the wing roots on the two
kits are totally different so I'm going to have to do a nifty bit of cutting
to take the wing roots and nose from the Mk24 and graft them onto the MkIX
fuselage. But hey... I'm supposed to be a modeller, aren't I?  I'm looking
forward to the build now...

i hope i don't live to see it become the norm.
how much less creativity can we encourage in the young?

But isn't the whole idea to learn hand-eye coordination for one thing.
In the UK they'd be re-badged under the "I can't be arsed" label and
sold alongside video games that have already been finished for you so
the hardest part is putting your name in.

The market in pre-made objects is already being saturated as my mate has
already finished a commission from (I think) Matchbox for Warburton's
Hurricane and already, even after more ideas for commissions coming in
from his bosses, they're talking of making several tens of thousands
just to dump half of them or melt them down again.

[snipped]

Hopefully it's a trend to get kids out and about running around and
getting some of that fat off!

The pre-made metal models are making a dent in kit sales but then again
the enthusiasm for new metal models is tapering off.  Hopefully there'll
be a backlash and the next generation of kids will be taught that
hand-eye coordination and other skills are a good thing and there'll be
a mold making kit to make your own plastic injection items!  :-)

Richard.