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Daniel-Wales-Images — Airfix Defiant
Published: 2019-09-19 15:48:53 +0000 UTC; Views: 611; Favourites: 44; Downloads: 0
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Description
An Airfix 1/72 Defiant that I completed recently. Finished with Vallejo acrylicsRelated content
Comments: 13
Looks good. Too bad its only success was as a night fighter during the blitz.
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You could argue that having any success at all is not a bad thing. Many aircraft over the years have taken a little time to find it's niche. The Lysander is a good example, pretty useless for the army cooperation role it was designed for, but found great success with the SOE as a ferry ship.
Why not dwell on an aircrafts successes rather than it's failures. Because what mattered is thst it played it's part.
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That's for damn sure. Like the Westland Whirlwind. Designed as a fighter, it would have succeeded as such if not for engine overheating problems. So it was relegated to ground attack until the Tempest and Typhoon came along.
The early Mustangs with the Allison engine had problems with loss of performance above mid level altitudes until the advent of the Packard-built Merlins. But the Allison-powered models still soldiered on as ground attack craft too.
So for every failure, there can be found one small success. You just have to find it.
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Very nice indeed. I especially like the weathering on the forward fuselage and wing root panels. Excellent!
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Nice one Mr Wales.
Tell me, what colour is the kit in its raw state ?
If I remember rightly the Airfix kit in the 60's was black - can't ever see a model like this without going right back to being a model mad kid
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Airfix only ever release kits in standard light grey these days, and their modern tooling of the Defiant is no different.
Colourful plastic is great nostalgia for those of us who remember the old days of bright yellow and blue matchbox kits. But it is rather disliked by most serious modellers, including myself to be honest. The problem with coloured plastic is that it is harder to work with than standard grey. For starters it does does not sand easily, or should I say that it is harder to see whether or not you are doing a clean job, partifularly when you are working with fillers. Silver and black plastic tend to be the worse culprits for this, as it shows up all the scratch marks that the sand paper is making, even when working with quite high grit and polishing material.
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I was on a bit of a nostalgia trip is all.
Their Lancaster, Stirling and Defiant I remember as black but the two that had the initial impact were the MK9 Spitfire and the BF109 G6 both in that sky blue and in the plastic bags with the header that unfolded into the instructions and history
Oh, and the old days for me apart from Airfix was Frog, Monagram and Revel !
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oops double post -dunno how I did that!
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I know the feeling, while the polybag kits are a bit too early for me to remember, I do get quite nostalgic whenever I see one of the old white box airfix aces range kits or black box matchbox models which often had silly coloured plastic. I remember blues, yellows, greens and reds... a nightmare for me today, but a little piece of me still loves those old kits.
I was lucky enough to have a well stocked Beatties, formally Taylor and Mckenna in my town when I was young, and I still remember the feeling as a eight year old kid running into the shop ahead of my parants and immediatly rummaging through what seemed to me at the time as rows upon rows of kit boxes. I used to spend ages looking for the perfect kit and staring up at the built models they had on display hanging from the ceiling. Different times, but the nostalgia is just as intoxicating. I guess I wouldn't be chasing aeroplanes today if it were not for those days. I'd probably have a few more brain cells too if it were not for the whiff of poly cement I've subjected myself to over the years.
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Oh yes, that childhood connection is powerful.
There was a specialist model shop actually called Models and Hobbies on the Farnborough road owned and ran by a chap with the great name of Mr Wally Bunn. I can still see him with his brown jacket with the elbow patches and his pipe. That was a well stocked shop as well. You could walk out of that shop in those days with your latest acquisition look up and see a Shackleton, Canberra , Meteor, Hunter, Beverly or , Devon amongst others on finals - all taken for granted and not missed until they were gone for good.
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