Airfix

[Gondor]

Well some people have taken the partsout of the bag.



The parts are basic. Poorer quality than the rest of the kit.

They also provide the Port and Starboard Shrike pylons as being the same depth when at least one aircraft has the Starboard one being shallower than the Port Shrike pylon, and no I am not confusing the ECM pylon in the mix.



That shows the comparison between the old pylons in light grey, and the new pylons in the dark grey. The contour line at the top of the pylons is more accurate as thy done have the cut outs to cover the lumps on the underside of the wing, which hapen to be the rear attachment points for the Skybolt pylons which is what was used to fit the pylons on the underside for the Black Buck missions as well.

So I thought to check the position of the holes in the wings to see where Airfix want us to fit the new pylons



THe rear hole is where the rear mounting point is, however the peg on the pylon is way forward of that and pictures on the web show that the rear of the pylon was attached where the hole is, not some 15" from the end which means the pylon would be too far towards the rear again 

As other have mentioned, the ECM pod is devoid of any detail, but so are the shrikes and everything else on Sprue M.

Things were going well Airfix, sorry to say that you metaphorically crashed and burned with this addition.

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

Though these are wrong because they have a cut out towards the rear of both pylons so that they would fit over "lumps" on the underside of the wings. These "lumps" are actually the rear mounting points for the Skybolt Missile Pylons and what the rear of the Black Buck pylons are fitted to. Airfix would have had you fit their pylons too far back along the wings.

Perhaps the cut-out is to fit the shoulders of the ECM tech?    

[jcf]

^^^   

[jcf]

This entire special release has all the hallmarks of a rush job. 

[The Wooksta!]

To quote a chef I worked with

"It's because people are retards."

[Weaver]

The proportions of those Shrikes are well out too.

[Beermonster58]

Just out of curiosity, I dug out my old 1/72 Hasegawa Weapons Sets. These were first released in 1987 (I think) and, both the ECM pod and, the AGM-45 missiles from 36 years ago are far better and, more finely detailed  than these 2023 Airfix offerings. Very poor show Airfix and, I think they have a cheek asking £72 for a kit with such poor additions. 

[rickshaw]

The rushed nature which is apparent in the poor moulding in the kit reminds me of the ASMP of the Heller Mirage 2000N kit.  A very poor job it was too!   

[zenrat]

This is the kit with the commemorative coin?
It's meant for collectors, not to be built.

[Beermonster58]

The rushed nature which is apparent in the poor moulding in the kit reminds me of the ASMP of the Heller Mirage 2000N kit.  A very poor job it was too!   

I never had that kit but, the poor quality brought to mind the additional bits included in the Grand Slam version of the (1981) Airfix Lancaster. Again, very crudely moulded. Fit was dreadful and, the wide bladed propellers were only fit for the bin. The blades had all the aerodynamic qualities of the average piece of two by four!! They were just thickly moulded blank shapes. Fortunately, I had some old,spare Mosquito props  handy.

[Gondor]

The rushed nature which is apparent in the poor moulding in the kit reminds me of the ASMP of the Heller Mirage 2000N kit.  A very poor job it was too!   

I never had that kit but, the poor quality brought to mind the additional bits included in the Grand Slam version of the (1981) Airfix Lancaster. Again, very crudely moulded. Fit was dreadful and, the wide bladed propellers were only fit for the bin. The blades had all the aerodynamic qualities of the average piece of two by four!! They were just thickly moulded blank shapes. Fortunately, I had some old,spare Mosquito props  handy.

I knew I had seen the quality somewhere before

Gondor

[Beermonster58]

The rushed nature which is apparent in the poor moulding in the kit reminds me of the ASMP of the Heller Mirage 2000N kit.  A very poor job it was too!   

I never had that kit but, the poor quality brought to mind the additional bits included in the Grand Slam version of the (1981) Airfix Lancaster. Again, very crudely moulded. Fit was dreadful and, the wide bladed propellers were only fit for the bin. The blades had all the aerodynamic qualities of the average piece of two by four!! They were just thickly moulded blank shapes. Fortunately, I had some old,spare Mosquito props  handy.

I knew I had seen the quality somewhere before

Gondor

The only bits I kept were the bomb itself and, the new bomb bay insert. The nose cover I fashioned out of milliput rather than use the useless item provided.

[PR19_Kit]

They don't seem to do add-ons very well, so they?

They should talk to Colin Freightdog's master builder, Mr. Lucas, HE knows how to do things correctly!

[Gondor]

They don't seem to do add-ons very well, so they?

They should talk to Colin Freightdog's master builder, Mr. Lucas, HE knows how to do things correctly!

A lot of the well their recent known releases have been a case of "Close But No Cigar" Errors that if they had talked to someone, just one person that knows the subject, then a lot of people could have been very happy. Saying that, Colin might not have got as much business with correction sets for Mosquitos 

Gondor

[Gondor]

A couple of aditional things to add tonight. Airfix had previously made a very nice ECM pod and an AGM-45 Shrike in their Hi-Teh weapons kit. I think I managed to find one of the ECM pods, I had bought two boxes of the weapons set, and none of the Shrikes but I did find one in my Hasagawa weapons sets and four launch adaptors so Black Buck 1 and Black Buck 6 are go, once I manage to confirm what the pylons on BB6 were like.

Second thing is kind of tied to the first. Would the description of some of Airfix's releces, the Mosquito, B.XVI and Black Buck Vulcan qualify for Erroneous Reporting?

Gondor