BAC Lightning

[jaw]

Good afternoon fellow BMers,

I 'm looking for some advice please. I am thinking about building a 1/72 Lighning F4 and F6 -as well as a T5 if there are any conversions about. But which is the best Lightning kit on the market. I believe that the Airfix F3 is very long in the tooth now, and the Hasegawa F6 is pretty ancient. However, I know that Trumpeter do a series of Lightnings - how good are these?

Thanks,

John

Hello - me again. You all spotted the typo I'm sure - it is of course a Lightning F3, and not an F4!

JOhn

[Duncan B]

Good afternoon fellow BMers,

I 'm looking for some advice please. I am thinking about building a 1/72 Lighning F4 and F6 -as well as a T5 if there are any conversions about. But which is the best Lightning kit on the market. I believe that the Airfix F3 is very long in the tooth now, and the Hasegawa F6 is pretty ancient. However, I know that Trumpeter do a series of Lightnings - how good are these?

Thanks,

John

Hello - me again. You all spotted the typo I'm sure - it is of course a Lightning F3, and not an F4!

JOhn

It depends on your own outlook really. The Trumpeter kit is a modern kit with nice engraved detail however it has a lot of issues regarding accuracy, in short it isn't very accurate at all. It is also quite expensive at around £20 for what is a flawed kit. If you are a rivet counter or someone who will look at the kit and be annoyed by its shortcomings then best go for the Revell/Hasegawa/Frog kit which is much older but is the basis for a decent representation of a F6 Lightning if you are willing and able to put the effort into it.

Neomaga do a T bird replacement resin fuselage for the Trumpeter F3 kit which will give you a fair representation of a twin seat Lightning but with the misshaped belly tank of the Trumpeter kit. Whirlybirds do resin T4 and T5 kits which are nice kits if you don't mind working with resin or fancy a go as they are easy to make. The Matchbox T55 will not make into a RAF T bird without major surgery due to it having the large belly tank of the F6 and is probably difficult to come by now anyway.

Hope that helps a bit.

[Scarlet]

The Trumpeter kits have a few shape issues, ventral tank, jet pipe area to name two. There are corrections on the market for these by Heritage and Aires. Whirlybird produce resin kits of the T4 and 5 and have an F3 as a future release. Heritage have a resin kit of the F6 and Neomega do a T4 conversion set. All of these are 1/72.

Posted while I was typing Duncan!

Edited July 21, 2012 by Scarlet

[theplasticsurgeon]

I'm sure a thread like this has cropped up before - but to cover most of the bases these are all 72nd scale.

Airfix F1A, well tail and canopy, the rest is an F3 kit.

F1A has DREADFUL cannon ports in the nose. On the example for this model they were plated over.

Airfix F3. Aeroclub canopy. Outdated kit, but about all there was when I built this model.

Hasegawa F6 with Matchbox decals.

Same moulds are used for recent Revell kit - the one with red trim.

Matchbox F6 with Hasegawa decals.

I always reckon this kit has a little too much anhedral.

But other than the anhedral, it was more available - hence I've built it 5 times (with 2 more F2As to be taken into consideration)

And for trainers - the Matchbox T55 kit builds a version only used by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Conversion for RAF use requires belly tanks and wings from a F1A or F3 kit. Mine is a T5 and uses bits from an Airfix kit.

A T4 with need tail from the F1A, and shorter cable ducts as on the F1A.

No experience of what Trumpeter has to offer.

[SimonR]

Hi John,

The guys have pretty much covered everything above in 1/72. I have done both Hasegawa (Frog) F6 & Airfix F3, I added Pavla cockpit to the Hase kit and the airwaves etch to the Airfix one and did an attempt at re-scribing!!

The old kits can turn out ok with a bit of work, and a lot cheaper than Trumpy with a stack load of corrections sets!

cheers

Simon

[Giorgio N]

Personally, for an accurate 1/72 lightning I'd rather look for a matchbox F.2A/F.6 kit instead of buying the hasegawa one.

If you don't mind resin, the heritage kit looks pretty good to me.. and does not cost much for a full resin kit IMHO

[Duncan B]

Personally, for an accurate 1/72 lightning I'd rather look for a matchbox F.2A/F.6 kit instead of buying the hasegawa one.

If you don't mind resin, the heritage kit looks pretty good to me.. and does not cost much for a full resin kit IMHO

I'd forgotten about the Heritage F6, might take a closer look for myself too.

[Navy Bird]

Or, why not buy them all, add a bunch of aftermarket stuff, and kitbash everything into one model!

Linky

Cheers,

Bill

[Duncan B]

Or, why not buy them all, add a bunch of aftermarket stuff, and kitbash everything into one model!

Linky

Cheers,

Bill

We'd need your fingers too though Bill Or we could send all the bits to you and have you make them for us, now that is not such a bad idea. Let me see, I need 3 F6's, 2 F1A's and a couple of T birds making, got any free time in your build schedule this month?

[Rich F]

For a T-bird, I'd recomend the whirlybird/Protojet resin kit if you can find one and if your comfortable with working with resin.

This was the T.4 but i converted it too a T.5 using an old Airfix F.3 tail, I scratch build the cable duct's and few other bits and pieces.

HTH

[Duncan B]

For a T-bird, I'd recomend the whirlybird/Protojet resin kit if you can find one and if your comfortable with working with resin.

This was the T.4 but i converted it too a T.5 using an old Airfix F.3 tail, I scratch build the cable duct's and few other bits and pieces.

HTH

As I remember it you did a lot of extra work filling in and rescribing and made a very fine job of it too, it was your build that made me fork out for on from Whirlybirds.

[jaw]

Gents - thanks for all the useful info on Lightnings. I am minded to go for the Whirlybirds T5 for a starter.

Thanks

John

[AnonymousAA72]

It must surely be only a matter of time before Airfix do the decent thing and re-tool the Lightning! You can see from the Airfix models on here how poor the moulds now are - the intake cone is now so blunt, BUT that kit is over half a century old! Hasegawa's/Revell's is newer (only 43-ish years old) but has severe shape issues around the nose and wings; Matchboxes kit is again a bit newer (40 years?) and has probably the best fuselage shape.

C'mon Airfix!! Go on, go on, go on!!

[Andy K]

Rich F, that Lightning is GORGEOUS!

[Rich F]

Thanks Andy Duncan your right I did do a bit extra filling and rescribing to bring it up to scratch, although still a decent kit in its own right.

John I think you chose wisely for your T.5, just wish we had a decent 1/48 T.5, I believe the Aeroclub tool is broke

[jaw]

After speaking to Roger Evans at Whirlybirds he has now sent mr the Whirlybirds pdf catalogue which makes very interesting reading. I had heard of them but they do not seem to advertise their wares, at least in the publications that I see. Nor do they have a website, which is a pity. They do both the Lightning T4 and 5 with decals, as well as other marks of LIghtning. After a peruse of the catalogue I will be ordering a T5 in the 145 Sqdn markings. Again many thanks for all you help - I knew that if I asked the question BMers would respond, and you did! And the completed models look excellent!

John

[Navy Bird]

We'd need your fingers too though Bill Or we could send all the bits to you and have you make them for us, now that is not such a bad idea. Let me see, I need 3 F6's, 2 F1A's and a couple of T birds making, got any free time in your build schedule this month?

My fingers are available for rent! Popular prices, too!

I agree with the prevailing sentiment that we need Airfix to scale down their 1:48 Lightnings so we can finally have good kits in the Gentleman's Scale. Please!!!

Cheers,

Bill

[Iain Ogilvie]

so we can finally have good kits in the Gentleman's Scale. Please!!!

Eh?

Airfix going into 1:32?

Iain

Edited July 24, 2012 by Iain (32SIG)

[Navy Bird]

Eh?

Airfix going into 1:32?

Iain

Hey, that would be nice too! (I did say "scale down" though...) The great thing about 1:32 (which I used to build all the time until I ran out of room) is that the extra detail is easier to make - but you have to make a lot more of it!

Cheers,

Bill