Supermarine Scimitar F.1

[cph64]

This was produced for Hannants by MPM and as such has many faults expected of a short run kit. Moulded in a softish grey plaastic with faint panel lines, knock out point in awkward places, mould seams down the fuselage sides but the worst fault is that the two fuselage halves differ in ength by about 2mm. This definitely a dry fit/check, repeat as many times as necessary kit. I found it easier to cut and fit the intake plates not using the kit instructions which are vague in the position of many items. The exhaust nozzles were also fitted from the inside, again contrary to kit instructions. With the cockpit, nosewheel bay and Bulkhead with the intake fans fitted weight was put in the nose and behind the bulkhead before the two fuselage halves were joined. Followed by filling and sanding. The same applied to the wings with the wing fences causing a few problems and the tailplanes have to be fitted with dihedral but are not machined for such.

[cph64]

More or less completed in 'website downtime' this time the undersurfaces etc. are gloss white. Initially I used Tamiya's white but it didn't like the primer so I applied Halford's Appliance White over it. A coat of Klear before the kit decals which did not want to behave. They had a carrier film that needed trimming and gripped once on so even with care there were wrinkles/tears (not tears but nearly though nautical language prevailed). As with parts not being shown in the correct place the same applied to decal placement so there was a lot of double checking. The kit decals are for an a/c from 800B Flight/Sqdn which were the tankers allowing Buccaneers to take off fully loaded to be topped up with fuel once airborne. Four drop tanks are supplied but no re-fuelling pod so I thought I was going to have to get one from FreightDog at some point until I found a photograph of 116 with Sidewinder AAMs on the outer panels and the spares box was raided accordingly. Exhaust stains were brushed Vallejo Smoke and weathering powders were used to stain the fuselage undersides as Scimitars were known to leak a lot, with drip trays sometimes being used. One builder says "It looks like a Scimitar, it's painted like a Scimitar but dimension wise it's not!", wilst another gives the dimensions as ok. Anyway it's completed and hasjoined the rest of my HMS Eagle cache. Not an easy kit but I'm happy with the end result and that's what matters.

[Bigkev]

It looks like a Scimitar, and if you enjoyed the build then that's a good result.

[chriswil42]

Looking very nice in its "new" paint scheme -straight out of the paint shop.