Royal Navy Sea Tempest

[waynos]

With all the skill and patience displayed with the real models on here I feel like a fraud putting this up but I thought a few people might be interested in seeing it.

The reason I feel 'undeserving' is because this is not a model at all, it is Yat Ming's 1/72 scale die cast TOY of the X-32, complete with working retractable undercarriage (!) which reminds me of the old Dinky planes from the 70's.

I was drawn to it because it at least looks to have a much more accurate shape than the Italeri X-32 I have used in the past, therefore the only aspect of 'modelling' that came into it was to paint the exhaust  in steel and black (originally it was the same grey as the rest of the plane), unclip the canopy (easily done - yes it unclips), paint the interior and then superglue it back in place, as it is flexible enough to mould itself to the contours of the fuselage, which it is nowhere near to matching in its original state, with a bit of thumb pressure. All I did then was apply some paint to the canopy itself and overpaint the kit, er toy,  markings and add modest amount of 'panel shading' to the front end, adding some sidewinders from the spares box (no ASRAAM available) and some RN decals that were lying around, about 10 minutes work in total I'm afraid, but at least I have the worlds only die cast metal  BAE/Boeing Sea Tempest FA.2 (I think)  

Compared to the Italeri kit the intake is more tapered towards the bottom, the cockpit area is lower, the bulge under the intake is much less pronounced and finally (and most easily fixed on the kit obviously) the fins are in the right place and are more or less the right shape too.

[nev]

Don't worry about the fact its a die-cast, some fine die-cast whiffs have been shown here in the past (Mike Wren's RAF C-5 springs to mind).

Looks good    

[waynos]

Cheers, I didn't realise that about die casts, I'll have a search for some.

I only went for it because after four failed attempts to get the Italeri kit to look how I wanted it to I found this one and copped out lol. I am pleased with the look of it though, as long as I don't look underneath (screw heads and sink holes). I might even get another and be a bit  adventurous.

[Captain Canada]

Cool ! I like toys with retracts...always good fun to play with on your imaginary RN Carrier !

 

[cthulhu77]

Personally, I am happy to see diecast making such a comeback...those hours spent in the backyard of my youth with Corgi tanks and planes were wonderful !

Neat stuff.

[Maverick]

Very nice 'build', and of one of my favourites too!!  I guess the only real kicker is the panel lines which make Matchbox's worst efforts look a bit tame  

Looks the part tho either way.

Mav

[lancer]

Very nicely done, and the result is damm good.

Yep, I remember my childhood and playing with my dinky toys and my matchbox skybusters air force and the matchbox tank corps I had as well.