Airfix 1/72 BAC Strikemaster

AIRFIX 1:72 BAC STRIKEMASTER

Reviewer: Mark B (SMAKR Webmaster) (smakr1@optusnet.com.au)
Kit Built + Review Submitted: August 2010

Kit Details:

a03049 - Hornby Airfix 1:72 BAC Strikemaster

Aircraft History:

Hunting Percival produced the highly successful Provost as a piston-engined trainer for Piston engined and early jet fighters for the RAF. But in the early 1950's and in the wake of the Korean War, Hunting realised it was illogical for the RAF to use the Provost to train pilots in the jet powered Vampire so they decided to produce a design that was an all-through jet, giving it the designation P.84. Hunting retained the flying surfaces and side by side seating of the Provost but introduced a new fuselage, turbojet and tricycle landing gear.

The RAF started with 10 Jet Provosts T.Mk 1s first flying in 1954 before equipping the flight training school becoming the RAF's first all-through jet trainer. The type was very successful, being one of the main trainers of choice used by the RAF until the mid to late 90's before being replaced gradually by BAe Hawks.

The obvious appeal of the Jet Provost as an economical trainer prompted BAC to do what Hunting couldn't achieve due to a lack of funds. And that was to develop the trainer into a cost effective attack machine that could also be used in training sorties. From this was developed the BAC 145 multirole trainer/attack aircraft that was effectively a pressurized Jet Provost T.5 that was given to the Omani Air Force. This in turn was further developed into highly refined BAC 167 Strikemaster which firstly flew in 1967. While it differed only in a few areas externally the fit out of the attack version was different to the trainer (the most obvious being increase in underwing stores points), incorporating uprated engines, armour plated interior and better ejection seats, along with of course the appropriate avionic changes. BAC continually developed the Strikemaster to be an aircraft that was virtually unbreakable in the harshest conditions.

The Strikemaster became the attack aircraft of choice for a few smaller air forces and was combined also with a training and reconnaissance role. The Strikemaster has seen action in the middle east with the Sultan of Oman air force and proved it could take significant battle damage and carry a reasonable bomb and rocket load into a strike.

The Kit:

There are approximately 90 injection molded parts which includes half a dozen clear parts inside the quite sturdy, new age packaged box. The main parts come inside a plastic bag (the clear parts are in their own plastic bag) and are molded in the typical Airfix medium grey colour but the crisper type that is now a bit of a trademark of Hornby releases. There are two main sprues if you can call them that, which house most of the parts, while the main wing and fuselage sections more or less come on their own individual parts. This kit has been around for a few decades now, a renowned competitor to the Matchbox mold, but the parts inside the box were free of flash (other than some minor areas to run the hobby knife over) and generally clean. While the parts count is reasonably high for a kit such as this size, it still exhumes an air of a fairly quick weekend project about it. The panel lines are raised but are not badly done and have stood the time well. Only sanding will threaten their survival!

Instructions:

This comes in the now generic A4 sized booklet that takes us through a potted history of the type and is headed as the BAC Jet Provost T.5/Strikemaster Mk.88 set of instructions. After some instructions about the assembly process and explanation of icons there are a dozen assembly steps which are quite straight forward to follow. At times it tells you about the difference between the Jet Provost and Strikemaster and instructs accordingly. Unfortunately again Hornby/Airfix have let us down by virtually no painting information for interior and assembled parts of the aircraft (eg: stores), preferring only to give you Humbrol numbers for the external scheme. The last four pages contain four-view diagrams for decal and painting information for the four versions the kit covers. The instruction sheet is pretty good here, covering all the areas of the aircraft (including small strips of silver) for painting information and decal placement which is very easy to follow, so long as you can train your eyes to see the decals being boxed numbers. Would prefer Airfix to perhaps do black boxes with white numbers for decals, that way it just helps not get the two mixed up. As mentioned only Humbrol numbers are given for the scheme, so you may need to have access to a paint cross reference chart but at least the shades used in the instructions make it easy to tell the different colours apart.

Construction:

A flat floor is given for the cockpit onto which is attached a large instrument panel with dashboard and two rather tall ungainly and inaccurate control columns. This is installed into a fuselage half (the kit also provides seats and pilot figures but these are added after the fuselage halves are put together) and it is best to test fit the other fuselage half over the cockpit/instrument panel to make sure you put it in the right position. In the absence of any information from the instructions I went scouring the net and found that RNZAF Strikemasters had a medium grey coloured cockpit with black seats/trimmings so I went with a medium grey interior not that much unlike the sprue colour.

Before the fuselage halves are closed, you need to install the internal nose landing and taxiing lights and the rear exhaust tail pipe. The instructions are not very helpful with the tailpipe, to install it to fit snuggly, means the tailpipe is sitting a millimetre or two back inside the fuselage - not sure that is right. The tip here is to assemble everything as it should be (I found it difficult to determine which way was up with the landing light sub assembly) using photographic/artist references and then to test fit the fuselage half over it before these components dry. The concern was both the tailpipe and landing light parts had to be exactly positioned in order for the other fuselage half to fit. If done right, the fuselage halves went together beautifully, in my case only needing very minimal clamping to dry.

The main wing sub assemblies are next, made up of upper halves and single underwing piece. For the Strikemaster you need to open holes in the underwing piece for the pylons. I forgot (as usual!) and with decent light, didn't have problems finding the small marks on the outside of the wing to drill holes through. The instructions indicate placing the upper halves onto the fuselage first and then the lower wing piece afterward. In reality I found it just as easy to do the wing as a sub assembly and once dry feed it into the belly cavity, again fits well, only a tiny amount of filler needed at the roots.

Tailplanes are split into two and fit very well and assembly moves on quickly. Wingtip tanks are made up of halves, placed together then on the wing tips. The pilot seats were dropped into the open cockpit, and although fiddly and need tweezers to coax gently into place, the grooves in the floor don't make this too hard. Once dry, the pilot figures were dropped onto the seats with similar care needed. The two piece canopy was left off until the end but the nose glazing for the landing lights was added, and all I will say here is that test fit first, as the fit is not that easy, but with a little bit of care and trimming, will go in nicely.

The intakes are straight forward and a good fit, but still a small gap where it meets the fuselage needs attention. The pylons were added to the underwing, and the fit of these is not very good. The locating pins are more like squares on the pylons, requiring some filing and trimming for them to fit into the locating holes on the wing. You also need to carefully file away some of the raised detail so the pylons will fit flush with the wing. For stores you are given a pair of drop tanks plus a couple of pairs of bombs. There are two pylons under each wing so it is up to you to choose the combination you want. I was hoping for rocket pods so I took these from my spares and put these on the inner pylons, drop tanks on the outer. The fit of the kit's stores was very good.

Moving onto the clear parts, the main canopy comes in two sections, and the small glazing part for the nose lights. There was a tiny bit of crusty flashy bits, and all these needed were a bit of a scrape and they fitted nigh on perfectly. All that was then left to do was to add a range of small parts such as upper fuselage intake ducts, aerials and the ADF sensor antenna that looks like a handrail. These were all a little fiddly and you were mainly left to your own devices to work out precise placement as neither the plastic nor instructions were very helpful at all - so references were definitely needed here which was a bit disappointing. You also had to carefully sand the mating surfaces as there were no locating holes and the small remainder of sprue lugs tended to be in the way.

Colour Schemes:

This is a real plus of this kit with four choices of aircraft you can do, 3 Strikemasters and 1 Jet Provost. The only problem is that the decals won't allow you to do any of them, as explained below. Going through the colour options, they are:

BAC 167 Strikemaster Mk.88 of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. The example is NZ6374, of 14 Sqn based at Ohakea, 1978. It wears the two tone upper dark green (Humbrol 116/117) and tan (H118) camouflage over pale grey (H28) undersides. This was the version I chose using the Humbrol numbers as stated. The upper camouflage is also termed for the USAF as the "Vietnam Camo" scheme. This example wears a prominent 74 badge on the fin and eitherside of the nose.
BAC 167 Strikemaster Mk.84 of the Royal Singapore Air Force. The example is 301 of 130 Sqn based in Singapore during the 1970's. It sports the same camouflage scheme as the RNZAF version above and wears roundels only on the fuselage, which are the older style red/white/red circles.
Another BAC 167 Strikemaster Mk.84 of the Royal Singapore Air Force. The example is 303 of 130 Sqn based in Singapore during the late 1970's and finished in the same camouflage scheme again and this time wears current day roundels but again only on the fuselage.
The final example is actually a BAC Jet Provost T Mk.5 of the RAF Fighter Training School, XW423, based at RAF Linton-on-Ouse, 1982. This wears the gloss colour scheme of the training school featuring mainly red fuselage and wing tips; upper white fuselage and grey panelling on the wings.

Decals:

Airfix decals are a love/hate relationship at the best of times. Experience over the years suggest they apply really well but their printing and register can really be a let down, almost to the point of having to get replacements. Well my experience in this kit was that these were probably the worst Airfix decals I have ever used. The printing looked pretty sharp on the backing paper but close inspection again revealed some off centre and misprinting, a couple of colours running, but overall nowhere near as bad as other sheets. On paper the decals looked thin to a matt register, and was looking forward to applying them - which is when the real issues started!

I learned early on in my modelling career that you always start with a decal you know won't matter if it fouls up, a tester if you like. Usually a black rectangle easily replicated with a swift stroke of the paint brush, a warning triangle you probably have in your spares or an underside decal, that well.... isn't going to be missed. That little tip was very appropriate for the first decal I applied simply broke up in cold water. The decals are virtually unusable and need to be replaced. I chose to do the New Zealand version and was resigned to the fact that I would have to purchase an aftermarket set to depict my aircraft. However I wasn't going to be beaten, and by the time I got to the more unique decals (ie: most needed ones for this aircraft) I had worked out a plan that worked out okay in the end. Basically if a decal tore (as it did with the fuselage serial codes), just had to carefully and patiently line them up again. I also found that it was best to use warm water (not hot, but definitely warm) and not use my finger or tweezers to slide the decal off the backing paper (as it would probably rip). Instead I simply swished the decal back and forth in the warm water until it mostly, or fully, came away from the backing sheet. Then it was much easier to carefully slide off using a delicate finger onto the model. The end result turned out very well. Such is the power of persistence, patience and care.

However the footnote here is to be prepared to have a spare set of decals ready to go, and your kit may not be as bad as mine! After sealing in with a gloss cote and painting the model matt later, I put my finger over a decal while showing it off to someone... and the decal came off onto my finger! This is several days later! Hmm.. a "do not touch" model this one. It's a bit disappointing because the two type of Singapore decals are attractive, and not often found in kits. In fact the red circles could have been used as spares for Turkey air force.

Overall Recommendation:

The decals are the most disappointing aspect of this kit and really have to be replaced. So long as you can source an aftermarket set the rest of the kit is not too bad at all. The profile is reasonably accurate, but as usual the Airfix kit misses the finer bumps and lumps that can detail a model into a replica. A reasonably straight forward build that is within the scope of most modelling skills, just keep that handy #11 knife blade on the side to remove the annoying crusty bits. No qualms in recommending this kit but supply your own decals.

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