AIRFIX 1:48 E.E. LIGHTNING F.1/F.1A/F.2/F.3
Reviewer: John Hall (rec.models.scale)
The English Electric Lightning is a legend in itself, being the last twin-engined single seat fighter produced by Britain, finally retiring from nearly 3 decades of service in 1988. The mid to late fifties heralded the design that initially was given the P.1 model number by English Electiric and superseded Mach 2 for the first time in 1958. In 1960 the Lightning entered service to give the RAF a highly supersonic all-weather interceptor with excellent performance but headache inducing maintenance problems. The F.1 version first equipped RAF in a number of squadrons and carried the Firestreak airt-to-air missile, the F.1A included provision for in-flight refuelling. The next version, F.2, was a better plane with improved performance and range, carrying Red Top missiles, and some also being based in RAF Germany. The F.3 version was another step up in performance and the most distinguishing feature was a larger square-tip fin, plus was often fitted with overwing fuel tanks. It also had no guns, relying totally on its armament of Red Top missiles as self defence.
The kit comes packaged in a rather big box with four sprues of injected plastic molds. I had actually picked my kit up cheaply from the model store because it had been used as a display for its box contents. This exposed it to handling other than just sight! Despite some bits being detached from the sprue and sitting loose in the box (another factor in selling it cheap) I was assured there was nothing missing. Later I would find myself a bit unsure because of omissions in both instructions and product lead to small inaccuracies on the model, so I can only assume that these were oddly overlooked by Airfix. The most obvious flaw in my kit when I opened the box was that there was only one tailfin - the longer, slender tailfin (the F.Mk 3 had a larger squared-off fin). Looking at the instructions there was some conflicting drawings so I am not 100% sure what the situation is (whether two fins were in the kit and mine went walkabout or whether only one was supplied). This was a big disappointment because I had my heart set on doing an F.3 model, but without the proper fin, this would be inaccurate so I decided to change my mind to a first production F.Mk 1A standard - which was to be a very good choice. The plastic contained only tiny spots of flash but did have a few sink marks, most notably on undercarriage and upper wing tips - first job was to fill and sand these.
I was very impressed with the fact that you could produce several versions and examples of the Lightning - had've Hasegawa produced this kit I am sure that you would have three kits marketed for each F.Mk number with same sprues and only minor alterations (like holes being opened) to differentiate between each. Likewise the decal sheets are quite big and cover most of the box bottom and I could see that I was going to have some choosing to do at the end of production! I also noted there would be quite a lot of decalling at the end of making the model regardless of which version I chose (for common components like rescue points, panel numbers, etc).
I generally start with the cockpit and other small assemblies like undercarriage and wings. The cockpit unit sits above the interior of the intake and is fairly sparse. Cutting Edge produce a resin kit and if I were to make another one I would probably ditch the Airfix provided cockpit and go with the resin. Nonetheless with seat, instrument panel, joystick etc I managed to do a little bit of scratchbuilding and fix up a reasonable finish with Airfix's supplied components. The interior of the intake is quite big and stretches back under the cockpit. You can then install the afterburner section which will first require to be subassembled and painted.
When joining the fuselage halves don't forget to first check the instructions for filling/opening holes and so forth. Since the kit replicates several versions of the Lightning some holes and preparation work needs to be attended to before you can continue. Since I am building an F.1A, pretty well all of the holes have been opened for you and this is also the same with the F.2 - seems Airfix have tried to cover the most versions as possible as opposed to the most commonly chosen assembly. But if you decide to do the F.1 then you will need to fill in holes for some of the ducting and the refuelling probe, the latter of course which the F.1 did not have. Conversely, for the F.3 you will need to open up some further holes near the front of the fuselage. You will also need to add a weight in the nose to prevent the finished Lightning from tail-sitting. Once prepared, the fuselage sections can be joined and you can also attach the separate speed brakes. Interestingly, the only time I have ever seen the speed brakes deployed on a Lightning was in flight or in a drawing on the ground. They're not deployed when taxiing or landing that I know of, so it seems rather odd that Airfix has provided them (on the general assumption that flying models are produced in typical flying pose).
The first major hurdle you come across is trying to get the nose ring to fit to the front of the fuselage. The nose ring seemed to be more round than the fuselage and neither was prone to a bit of contortionism to accept the other. So out came the flat file to assist in getting this very frustrating step out the way. Some filler was also required to make the effort less noticeable. I then went onto affixing the duct frames and sections which were quite fiddly and not really well molded. Some sanding and filling will be sought to get a smooth appearance on the model and will also take a while to get it to look good. The Aden gun muzzles are fairly shallow and don't look right - resembling more like ducts than anything. On my example I drilled and cut it out more, to give it a more deeper appearance and this is certainly recommended otherwise it just doesn't look like a gun furrow! Of course, if you are building the F.3 then the guns are not required since that version is all-missile, and I noticed some stoppers were supplied in the kit to plug the gun-holes up.
The wings and tail were placed on the aircraft body with straight forward ease. The flaps on the wings are separate so that you can position them, but like the speed brake notation above, the only time I have seen the flaps positioned other than in the neutral pose was on actual take off (ie: in the air as opposed to taxiing or even streaking down the runway!). Again, it appears that these are used only while the aircraft is in flight. Next you move onto all the external antennae and air scoops and this is sure to keep you busy for a while as you attach all these to the aircraft. The instructions call for a bit of drilling, which is annoying, I much prefer to fill holes or open pre-cut with "film over the opening" holes rather than having to make the holes myself. What was more annoying was knowing that Airfix could have done many of these holes themselves because they were applicable to all of the versions provided in the kit! Furthermore, I didn't notice this next conflict at the time - it was later pointed out by a fellow modelling enthusiast - Airfix have contradicted themselves with lower and upper fuselage detail. They have made good detail of various turbine exhaust and intake ducts on the lower half of the fueslage, which have been carved out and indented as one would expect, but on the upper sides they have merely engraved outlines of exhaust/intake ducts. It certainly makes it inconsistent was easily seen by modelling buddy when he was having a look at the aircraft. It is probably not something you would notice straight off, or without a good eye for detail, but once known it does annoy you.
In the final step I attached the assembled undercarriage and found that the main gear struts were a bit wider than the attachment point. The instructions are a bit vague here because they do not show the precise attachment points so either calculated guesswork or a reference source will need to be called upon. This is further compounded when the main, larger strut does not fit where it's supposed to into the provided hole. I ended up shaving my main strut down and made a number of test dry-fits until it basically sat over the hole and used fast setting glue to fix it in place before glueing it properly. Otherwise the fitting of the wheels, main doors and general undercarriage assembly is tight without any real problems. The auxillary doors, however, are another story and after a lot of attempts and coaxing I finally got them to fit.
So the completed model looked quite nice and other than subassembly detail and preparation painting, it was time to colour the brute beast. I primed the model for a natural metal finish and chose the F.1A model from No. 56 Squadron "Firebrands" (which is depicted as box art for this kit) with colourful red spine, tailfin, leading edge and checkerboard under the cockpit. The anti-glare area in front of the cockpit was painted with a flat black while the nose radome was given an extra dark grey finish.
The kit supplies decals for six versions (all natural metal finish), being F.1 of 74 Sqdn; F.1A of 56 Sqdn; F.2 of 92 Sqdn and F.3 of 23, 29 and 111 Sqdns. If you choose to make the F.3 in particular, then you can perhaps apply a different three-gray colour scheme as it appeared in its last operational days for the RAF. Of course, you will need to specifically get a full set of aftermarket decals as the kit decals will be of no use (for example, black writing and stencilling appeared on natural metal finished aircraft but white lettering was used on three-gray scheme aircraft) - I am aware that Aeromaster produce a decal set, and particularly for the white stencilling you can filch the sheets from Airfix's F.6 model. The decals I used (which came with the kit) were quite good quality and had no trouble setting on the aircraft.
The finished product looks well worth the effort and construction. It is truly a magnificent aircraft and Airfix have produced a quite accurate detailed version of it. I'd certainly recommend it to those of at least intermediate building experience because there are a number of small parts and a few problems with fitting as pointed out above that may be beyond the novice, and annoying for those of lesser skills. Maybe next time I will build my late model F.3 with the proper fin grabbed from somewhere (if indeed it was ommitted from the kit) and give the Airfix experience another go!
Related Reviews: Airfix 1/48 Lightning F.Mk 2A/6
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Box cover of the F.1A from 56 Squadron - the example my kit produced