Vista 1/72 Fairey Fulmar

VISTA 1:72 FAIREY FULMAR MK.I/II

Reviewer: Tim Beales (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 3 April 2004
Addendum at bottom and further information/images supplied by Richard Rusnak
A SECOND addendum and also supplied Revell boxart from Carlos Giani, September 2007

Kit Details:

1/72 Fairey Fulmar Mks I and II by Vista

Aircraft History:

Fairey was one of the competing companies for who tendered for the UK Air Ministry specification P4/34 in 1937. The Fairey entry was similar to the existing Battle light bomber, but was smaller. After minor modifications, the design was quickly accepted and became known as the Fulmar. The first Fulmar Mk Is flew in 1940 to favourable handling reports, but since the aircraft was powered by a single Merlin engine, the speed was on the slow side and the ceiling was a little low. Some aviation authors have much criticised the Fulmar, but, as a carrier-based aircraft, it was never considered likely to run into land-based fighters. It is also worthy to note that the Fulmar had eight guns (the same as the Spitfire and the Hurricane), but carried twice the ammunition as these two aircraft, and had an endurance of five hours (much more than either the Hurricane or Spitfire). The Fulmar was also superior to all the aircraft it replaced. The first FAA squadrons to receive the Fulmar Mk I in late 1940 were Nos. 808, 807, and 806 Squadrons on the Ark Royal, Eastleigh, and Worthy Down, respectively. The Fulmar Mk I saw extensive action in the Mediterranean against the Italian Air Force, helping to defend Malta and providing escort duties for Swordfish torpedo raids, such as at Taranto. The Fulmar was also used to develop catapult-type launching from ships, albeit that this type of launch was ultimately more applicable to other aircraft.

The Kit:

The Vista Fulmar is contained in a typical Czech 1/72-type model box with a high aspect ratio, and an attractive painting on the front of a Fulmar Mk II in flight. The back of the box shows coloured three-view drawings of a Fulmar Mk I and a Fulmar Mk II.

The kit parts are moulded on darkish-grey plastic sprues with medium-sized injection gates, along with an acceptably clear canopy. Panel lines are prominent, there were no casting blemishes or flash of any kind, and the parts fitted very well on dry fitting. Some corners have been cut to keep the model simple however, such as the catapult spools, which are moulded straight onto the lower wing section as solid triangles. Advanced modellers will no doubt want to replace these, and add other details to choice. My first impressions on opening the box were favourable. I feel if Matchbox would have done the Fulmar, then it would have looked a lot like this, (albeit probably moulded in yellow and red plastic sprues), and that is a compliment, as I am a fan of Matchbox kits.

Both Smer and Revell have since reboxed this kit.

Instructions:

The instructions are contained on a single, small square sheet printed in blue and black ink on both sides that contains two sections, divided top and bottom. The top of the front sheet contains side-by-side instructions on modelling tips given in Czech and English, along with the technical specifications of the Fulmar in a small typeface situated below the modelling tips. The bottom part of the front sheet contains a brief history of the Fulmar in side-by-side Czech and English paragraphs, along with a list of paint colours given at the bottom of the text for the Fulmar Mks I and II (but not stating which colour aligns with which aircraft). The colours are given a description, along with a corresponding Humbrol (although not stated as such) and Methuen numbers.

Construction:

A quick glance at the assembly stages showed that this was not going to be a complicated affair. The first step was to glue the observer's seat into the rear of the long cockpit floor, and at the front, to glue the pilot's control pedals and a joystick. I painted the entire interior green (H78) and all the other parts black (H33). The cockpit floor assembly is then cemented into the starboard fuselage, along with a plastic blanking piece for the front radiator air intake designed to prevent a see-through effect. A triangular piece that contains the moulded-in arrestor hook recess on its lower surface is also cemented into an area towards the rear of the fuselage. Once these parts are in place, the two fuselage halves are brought together. The joints were pretty sharp, and disappeared when polished up with extremely fine wet and dry paper. Some modellers may find it tricky to get the arrestor hook recess part aligned as their are no guide pins, and may prefer to close the fuselage halves when the glue is still workable to achieve an acceptable alignment.

The interior was finished off by inserting the pilot's seat, the pilot's rear bulkhead and headrest, and the instrument panel. One word of note here is that the shape at the front of the cockpit instrument panel is different for the Vista Fulmer and the Rareplanes Fulmar. In fact, the Vista Fulmar has the Rareplanes shape moulded in, but has a section of filled-in plastic across the gap. One of these must be wrong, but I don't think it will trouble an average modeller. I believe the Vista Fulmar was made this way to facilitate insertion of the gun sight, which is attached to the front of the cockpit. The final stage was to attach a bulkhead that divides the pilot and observer, (note that there is no placement guide for this, but it should align with the "filled-in" section of the canopy. The cockpit was then enclosed by the long transparent canopy attached with Kristal Kleer. I found that I had to smooth the internal joint of the cockpit with a No. 11 blade before attaching the canopy, and also, once in place, had to trim the protruding edges of the canopy flush with the fuselage to prevent a visible line appearing on painting. This was easily done with a sharp blade, because the bottom half of the canopy is painted, and so there was no fear of introducing marks on the clear parts.

The next stage was to attach the rather simple exhausts, which fit into slots cut into the fuselage. The wings were attached using the method favoured by Frog, whereby the full-span lower wing unit is cemented to the bottom of the fuselage, and the remaining starboard and port wing halves are attached to the bottom wing, and, hopefully, also attach to the fuselage. I nearly always find that this arrangement is difficult to engineer in practice, and often requires putty to fill the gap at the wing roots. I didn't find that this model proved an exception to the rule, and putty was required to obtain a smooth joint. The wing assembly was completed by cementing in place the two rear tailplanes. Again, a smidgeon of putty was used at the joints and sanded smooth. If one intends to model a Fulmar II, then the cheek radiator intakes will need to be fitted besides the front air intake.

The model was then flipped over and the undercarriage attached: solid doors for flying, or a clipped lower section and then separated for gluing into the undercarriage bays for a wheels-down version. The undercarriage legs are single pieces with a moulded-in retraction jack. The wheels are also single pieces. The leg and wheel detail is OK, but everything else is smooth plastic. The arrestor hook was glued into its recessed slot, the tail wheel into a hole in the rear of the lower fuselage, and a pitot tube fitted into a slot in the starboard wing. (However, on some photographs of the Fulmar, I have seen the pitot tube clearly shown on the port wing). There was no trouble with any of the above stages.

The model was finished off by cementing the three-blade propeller to the spinner, and inserting the propeller shaft into a drive cylinder, which can be sealed with a locking nut if one wishes to have a rotating propeller. This completed unit slotted into a locating hole at the front of the fuselage. Again, absolutely no problem was encountered with the fit. The last two items to be fitted were the transparent landing light on the port wing, and an aerial on top of the canopy.

Decals & Painting:

The rear of the box shows two unidentified Fairey Mk I and Mk II aircraft. Vista list five paint colours, but provide no indication of where these are supposed to go: dark slate grey (H31), Sky Type S (H23), extra dark sea grey (H164), grey green (H120), and sky grey (H147). No doubt, the choice of paints cited will cause some discussion.

I assume Vista intended the modeller to reference the coloured art on the back of the box, but on my version, the Sky Type S and Sky Grey for the two marks of Fulmar was indistinguishable. No indication is given as to where the "Grey Green 120" referred to should go, but I made an assumption that it was supposed to be an interior green. H120 is a close match to RAF Interior Green, but this colour is more usually represented by H87, and so I used this instead on my model instead.

The Mk II aircraft with the US-style star roundels is from Operation Torch in 1942. I chose to model the Rareplanes Fulmar in this scheme, so I opted to use a paint scheme for the Fulmar Mk I shown in the Rareplanes kit, which is of a Fulmar Mk I, serial N 1858 of the FAA in 1940. I painted the topside a disruptive dark slate grey (H102) and extra dark sea grey (H79) camouflage over sky (H23). The Rareplanes scheme has an attractive yellow rudder and spinner (H24). The tail stripes are also full width, and so I painted a base layer of white for this (H34) with a red edge (H73) and blue rear band (H189). I used Xtradecal B-type roundels on the upper wing, and A- and A1-type roundels on the lower wings and fuselage, respectively. The serials came from Modeldecal sheet No. 34A. I hand painted the wing gun patches (H60).

Accuracy:

The Fulmar had dimensions of length = 40 ft 2 ins and wingspan = 46 ft 4½ ins. In 1/72 metric units these scale out as 17 cm and 19.6 cm, respectively. My kit measured 16.9 cm and 20.2 cm, respectively.

Final Comments:

An easy kit to construct of a neglected aircraft. Can be made by novice modellers up to die-hard super detailers. Vista seems to have disappeared after this kit, which is a pity, as it's a great debut. Although I don't model in larger scales, it struck me after completing this kit that the Fulmar is a rather sleek aircraft, and would pose a striking model in 1/48 or 1/32 scale. How about it Airfix?

ADDENDUM SUPPLIED BY RICHARD RUSNAK

Induction

It would be useless to repeat the facts that Tim Beales described in his well-balanced review on the exceptional and nice kit Fulmar from the Czech Vista. I would like to amend his review by few tips how to modify the initial kit in order to gain even better look.

I would like to mention, that Vista Ltd. still exists and is currently producing toys, but no plastic kits anymore. It was established in 1993 after privatisation of Kovozávody Semily, which launched also only one exceptional kit, Curtiss P-40K. It is a pity that they do not continue in their production.

Improving of the kit

Cooler (You can partially see the solution on Picture 1)

First step is to remove the upper part of the coolers, blind and expand this space by bulkheads.
I do not recommend using original part -indicated plain forehead of the cooler. Instead of this prepare two cylindrical glycolic cooler and a square oil-cooler between them into the created space. They were located in the back third of the tub under the engine.
Before the above formation show a smaller air-inlet of rectangular shape next to the carburettor, located about the middle third of the tub. The inlet was placed at the upper part of the tub chamber.

Interior

The initial interior of the kit is very poor.

Following the pen-drawing on [1] I have amended the side-panels of both cockpits with indicated instruments and blinded the back part of the fuselage. I have also amended the equipment of the cockpit with prismatic shapes on the floor in front of the navigator’s seat. You can see it on picture 1.

After assembling the top part of the cockpit will be visible, from this reason it is good to fit it. I recommend not to use the original part in front of the navigator, but to prepare a separate tank with hydraulic liquid behind the pilot, instruments in front of the navigator and the expressive piece of the compass behind the navigator (Picture 2). Certainly you should complement it by seat belts for both seats.

Wings

Drill the openings of the four machine guns in the wings. On the pictures the openings are shown in a row, but the drawings show it in the corner of trapezoid by longer side up. For my kit I have chosen the version from drawings (Picture 3). At the same time you can drill the outlets for the ejection of cartridge case on the bottom of the wing-surface.
Drill the indicated handle for manipulation or cut it on both ends of the wings and close the profile of the wing by a glued plastic thread (Picture 4).
In the back part of the undercarriage wells show the continuous main bearer of the wing made from a plastic panel, which closed the space of the wells. In order to complete it, you have to cut off the front parts of the contact area from the upper half of the wing. Close the wells from the side by indication of a rib. After completion the joint of the wing and the fuselage requires significant binding and sanding.

Under the reflector cover indicate its body.

Drill the opening for gun camera instead of the mistakenly indicated reflector on right wing.
Place the Pitot tube, which is on the kit mistakenly placed under the left wing, to the right position under right wing.

Fuselage

A characteristic mark of the airplane was a deviation of tail fin to the left. Because of this you should cut the front part of the tail fin, skew it and glue it in this position. You can fix the deviation for example by sticking a needle into the fuselage so that the tilted tail fin would be leaning against the needle by side. The cut needs to be done on the right half of the trunk too, so that the part could be glued together. This change will require binding and sanding (Picture 4).

Grind away the navigation lights under the cooler tub and create new one that were moved to the right by 1.5mm on the kit. The colors of the light should be in order white, red and green.
Cut off the triangle hangings for catapult and create a triangle frame from thin plastic sticks.

On the upper edge of the front pilot canopy add a rear-view mirror.

References

[1] Hlobil, Miroslav: Fairey Fulmar Mk.I/II, Plastic Kits Revue No. 31, 1994, Czech Republic.

[2] Salajka, Martin: Bouřňák Lední, Letectví a Kosmonautika No.15 and 16, 1994, Czech Republic.

ADDENDUM SUPPLIED BY CARLOS GIANI

I totally agree with Tim Beale´s review to this kit. It represents one of the greatest debuts ever seen in this hobby, specially considering that unknown Czech firms can never hope to get such investments as they are usually done in the Asian area.

The parts are clean and flash-free, the assembly is absolutely painless (o.k., there was a gap to fill and sand at the wing roots, but this also often happens on very expensive kits from the land of the rising sun), the surface detail level is impressive, the decals are first class, even the canopy went on nearly perfect. And all this for €7.-!

I painted my model with upper surfaces Revell R67 / R79 and lower surfaces Humbrol HB4 (duck egg blue), plus Johnson´s Klear and Humbrol Satin H135. Although I had some troubles with my airbrush, and despite the fact that I made some remarkable mistakes (two gun ports per wing instead of four; too heavy framing on the front canopy), I made a couple of photographs of the finished model, so that you can imagine what can be made with this wonderful kit.

Highly recommended!

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