It's out boys.

It looks superb and sounds like it's the best 16quid or whatever(euros,dollars,groats,camels,etc)
you can spend whilst still keeping your clothes on.

Here's a quick review:
drewemanton.com/seafire17/seaf17.html

Some of the Britmodeller masiv have already pounced and already reckon
it's a contender for Kit of the Year,so a hoooooge step forward for good old
Airfix at a very reasonable price.

Although I normally only build in 1/72nd,I really am being lured towards it
(the Seafire XVII is MY all-time favorite of the Spit/Sea series).
I reckon our Edgeler and I will be parting with the readdies next weekend at Cosford.

As soon as the BM gang put up a WIP thread or two with it,I'll post the links
so we can all have a shufty.

Mark

That looks really nice. A good follow up to the MkXII Spit they released recently.

I usually model in 1/72 like Mark mostly because of lack of space, but also for cost reasons. I'm very tempted by the latest Airfix 1/48 models though as they seem to have hit a quality/cost balance which is really tempting.

I can't buy this one just yet as I managed to get off work early last Friday and visited the large model shop on the other side of Milan where I gave in to temptation and bought an Airfix 1/72 Cranberry B(I)8, and two Xtrakit Meteors, an F8 and the NF11/12 which is a reissued Matchbox kit. I'm having a bit of a cold war moment.

Jon

" I'm having a bit of a cold war moment" what - with the missus ?
Cheers
Dave M(oly)

Thats a bit of all right

Leif

Molyned wrote:


No, that's been dragging on for ages.

In fact it may be about to escalate as the Airfix Canberra comes in a huge red box which even SWSNIIM (she who shows no interest in models) can hardly miss.

Jon

Woo-hoo.

Edge and I both picked one up at a very,very wet Cosford show.

We can both confirm that this kit is an absolute corker,a real gem indeed.

My only gripes with it is that the rudder pedals are pretty naff,just square blocks
of plastic and nothing like the "D" shaped two-step jobs that should be there.

T'other is that there's no "back of the fuel tank" that can be seen through the
instrument panel frame behind the rudder pedals.

Both are easily fixed(if you're a bit of a Spit/Sea rivet counter ),
but if you leave 'em alone and built it OOB,you'll have a damn fine replica
of the most brutal but oh-so-graceful lookers of the entire Spit/Sea series.

Buy it,you'll love it.

Mark

murnaghan wrote:


Dunno about the Canberra Jon,but the two Meteboxes I do.

The ex-Matchbox NF is pretty accurate in shape and dimension except for one of the noses.
I think it's the NF.11's which is a smidge too long.
If you want to do the NF.14 and the kit hasn't got the bits(big intakes,nose,upper fuselage deck,
tail unit and sliding hood)give me a shout,I can fix you up.

The upper deck and wing fit is the bane of this kit,be prepared for plenty of fettling.
Get the fettling properly sorted and you'll cut down on the filling and rescribing.

The F.8 is a little beauty,very accurate and looks superb when done(I used one for my
drone conversions if you remember).
Points to watch with it are the intakes(it has big'uns and little uns),the exhausts and the
under side wing fit.
Be prepared for some fettling of the wing roots(a sprue brace inside the fuselage at about
mid point helps a lot)and a bit of sanding of the mating surface at the back end of the wing's
fuselage section.

The intakes and exhaust are slightly over-size,but sand nicely one they're fitted.

The undercart is a bit over-engineered and fidley(an alternative is the Aeroclub set,works
well with the NF too),so carefull fitting is the watchword again,but it does look pretty
good once built up.

There are a couple of posts on them both on Britmodeller,I'll find them and link 'em
for you.

Mark

Thanks for the info Mark.

I haven't started any of these yet, they're currently stashed. The Matchbox NF will probably be the first but I've already spotted on Britmodeller that it can be a bit tricky.
Have you seen this line up there?

www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=75197&st=0

Looking at the F8 it does look to be a lovely kit and I'm glad you've confirmed that the undercarriage is fiddly. It looked pretty flimsy to me as well. I'll heed your advice about building it.

Jon

Yes,nice line up isn't it that.
He builds a nice Metebox does old Canberraman(he's a Mark too ).

Something I forgot to say about the F.8,the nose wheel attachment in the well
is just a little ring on the roof that you sit the top of the leg into.

I drilled the top of the leg(about 0.75mm IIRC)and superglued a bit of metal rod
into it and then drilled the centre of the little ring to match.
It just beefs up the attachment point a bit because you need a fair bit of
weight in it's nose and under the cockpit floor otherwise it's a tail sitter.

Oh yeh,the BM Massiv reckon it's the NF.14's nose that is too long.
They say to use the NF.11 nose,that's the correct length for both,
but hasn't got the underside bulged fairing(housed the aircon.gear)that
the NF.12's has.
The NF.12 being the variant built for the overseas RAF night fighter units
of the time back when we had an Empire,what,what.

Mark