De Havilland Venom kits?

[pyro-manic]

I am looking to build a couple of DH Venom fighter-bombers, but as far as I can tell, there is no plastic kit of this aircraft in 1:72 scale. I know Czechmaster do some very spiffy resin kits, but at £35+ a pop I really can't afford one, let alone two or three. Does anyone know of a conversion kit for the old Frog Sea Venom, or a vacform kit or something?

Thanks,

pyro

[Weaver]

Might be being naive here, but couldn't you put the wings from a Sea Venom kit onto the fuselage of a Vampire?

[upnorth]

I really wish you'd posted this back in November when one of my local shops had a pair of 1/72 Aeroclub Venoms in their consignment section. They were going for very nice prices and I'd have happily snapped them up for you

[kitnut617]

Got the two versions of the injection Venoms that Aeroclub does/did in the stash.  Nice little kits if you want to know and they do pop up every so often on the second hand market.  I believe MPM or Special Hobby is supposed to be releasing a kit of them to sometime in the future

[PR19_Kit]

Might be being naive here, but couldn't you put the wings from a Sea Venom kit onto the fuselage of a Vampire?

The Venom fuse was more bulged aft of the cockpit, as it had the larger Ghost engine instead of the Vampire's Goblin. Could be done with some creative PSR I suspect, but would be LOTS of work.

Maybe grafting the nose of the Vampire onto the rear half of the Venom's pod might work?

[rickshaw]

Didn't Heller once do an Aquilon kit?  That was the French license built Venom.

[upnorth]

Didn't Heller once do an Aquilon kit?  That was the French license built Venom.

I think Heller released the Vampire (possibly Airfix moldings), as the french license built version of that. I don't recall any of the big name manufacturers ever doing a straight Venom in 1/72.

To my knowledge, beyond the old Frog Sea Venom, all other 1/72 Venoms are in the limited run end of things.

Hopefully, we will see Amodel grace us with a new tooled Venom in the scale as they do seem to have a pair of Vampire kits in the pipeline .

[kitnut617]

Didn't Heller once do an Aquilon kit?  That was the French license built Venom.

A few of the first ones were built by Airspeed, then the rest were built by Sud Est. But it's a copy of the two-seat Sea Venom.  I've really been hoping that John Adams (Aeroclub owner) would re-issue his Venom kits as they are very nice models.  Maybe if he was lobbied by enough people he might ---  

The only kit of the Aquilon I can see in my PAK-20 book was made by Eurokit in 1/72 and is resin, Heller released a Sud Est Mistral in 1/72 inj' which is a Vampire copy.

[Mossie]

I spotted a Venom build on Hyperscale using an Airfix Vampire & a conversion set from a company called Tasman Models, but I 've never heard of them & can't find any info of where to get their stuff.
http://hsfeatures.com/venomtm_1.htm

Hannants had an Xtrakit Vampire under Future Releases, possibly a Venom too IIRC, but they took them off again.  Maybe they'll get around to releasing them in time?  I need some mainstream injection Vampires!

[Cliffy B]

I believe CMK is releasing a 1/72 Vampire NF.10 soon but its resin.  They already have one in 1/48.  Still it should only be around $45 which isn't THAT bad but seems like its the only one in town 

[kitnut617]

I spotted a Venom build on Hyperscale using an Airfix Vampire & a conversion set from a company called Tasman Models, but I 've never heard of them & can't find any info of where to get their stuff.

I've got some of their stuff, decals and Vampire/Venom 100 Gal. tanks plus I have the Sea Venom upgrade set.  High Planes Models used to sell the bit and pieces but they're not listed on the website anymore.

But according to the PAK-20 book, Tasman Model Products is the parent company to Tasman, Falcon, Ventura, Kiwi Wings, Southern Cross and Upgrade.  Ventura in now called Jay's Models.   There's a number for the Upgrade set for the DH Sea Venom/Aguilon which has a note saying it's ex-Frog [UG1001] and they have a listing for Vampires Mk.1, Mk.3, Mk.5 and Mk.6 in 1/72 injection.

[Barry Krell]

The Tasman Venom is the Frog Sea Venom plus a new decal sheet and a load of white metal bits.

The Heller Mistral is the Nene engined licence built Vampires built in France.

Frog did a Venom in the 50s but the tooling is long gone.  Their Sea Venom is the only plastic Venom kit available.  Aeroclub's Venoms are limited run, a fair bit of work and the moulds are long gone - it was released in the late 1980s.

There's an article on cross kitting the Frog Vampire and Sea Venom to get a Venom in an old issue of Scale Aircraft Modelling.

[kitbasher]

There's an article on cross kitting the Frog Vampire and Sea Venom to get a Venom in an old issue of Scale Aircraft Modelling.

And an easy conversion it is indeed.  An FB1 is the easiest.  Fuselage front end and tail booms from a Vampire, the rest from a sea Venom, in the mosy=t basic terms.  Dis one about 25 tears ago, still have it in the cupboard!   

[Kerrillc]

Hi Pyro

Have you tried Comet Miniatures? Although they do have an excellent sci-fi/film/tv based model business, their airfix/revell/italeri/hasegawa models are extensive?

They don't have any on the website listings, but not everything they have is on it.

I have bought quite a few models from them in the previous months and they are very knowledgable and always helpful.

Here's the web site address: www.comet-miniatures.com

Hope this helps

Regards

Kerrill

[PR19_Kit]

Lincoln did a single-seater Venom, but I've never seen one, and they were notorious for making 'fit the box' kits, so there's a good chance it was in the ever popular 1/53 scale....