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I have some feelings for "X" and "Y" aircraft projects.

The TSR-2 would be a BIG project and looking around I did not found the Airfix kit itself but

I do found some resin sets.... 173,10 Euros... not counting some PE sets... nor decals ...

SouthViper

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I have some feelings for "X" and "Y" aircraft projects.

The TSR-2 would be a BIG project and looking around I did not found the Airfix kit itself but

I do found some resin sets.... 173,10 Euros... not counting some PE sets... nor decals ...

If you want to build a TSR-2 in 1/48, prepare for a LOT of work if you want a showstopper.

The kit feels like it is a scaled up 1/72 or even 1/144 kit. The panel lines are the dreaded Airfix trenches. You could probably fit an X-wing and a bunch of TIE-fighters in them. The kit lacks detail, and the detail that is there is soft and chunky. It has some quite severe shape issues - the fuselage sides forward of the intakes is slightly rounded, where it is distinctively flat on the real thing. The shape where the upper fuselage meets the wing is also wrong, but can fairly easily be fixed with a lot of sanding. On the upside, the fit is better than expected, if I remember correctly. You need to sand and putty in places, but far from everywhere.

That said, the TSR-2 is a beautiful aircraft. I should pick mine out of its storage and finish it someday..

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Personally, I think if you're priced out of the TSR-2 market it's God's way of telling you to build something that doesn't suck! I know the wretched thing has a bizarre fascination for quite a few of us, but honestly? If the RA-5C was designed by Worker's Co-Operative Committees...

Just my humble opinion, of course, and my aesthetic ideas are a bit off-centre. I know, howzabout a nice YF-23? Trumpeter plastic and loadsa aftermarket for less than the price of a good dinner -what more could you want?! :D

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I have some feelings for "X" and "Y" aircraft projects.

The TSR-2 would be a BIG project and looking around I did not found the Airfix kit itself but

I do found some resin sets.... 173,10 Euros... not counting some PE sets... nor decals ...

SouthViper

Any chance of listing what are the resins required? Also what are the issues with the kit. Picked one up for a really good price when I was in the States and was hoping to build it as a WHIF but may not if the corrections are gonna cost a fortune!

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Any chance of listing what are the resins required? Also what are the issues with the kit. Picked one up for a really good price when I was in the States and was hoping to build it as a WHIF but may not if the corrections are gonna cost a fortune!

Don't remember right now what issues this kit has BUT, I do remember that there were a lot of resin aftermarket sets for the TSR2, released about a decade ago. And I know this because I have the 1/72 TSR2, and every time I was looking at these sets in mags' advertisements, I wanted to buy them (unfortunately, I didn't). Having said that, the sets were for the cockpit and the right electronics bay-area, the bombs-bay, wheels' wells, and if I remember correctly some resin wheels also.

When I estimated how much it would cost me to buy all these aftermarket sets, including the kit's price, the estimation was more than $100!!! Still if you only buy the cockpit's resin set, it makes a wonderful scale model.

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Any chance of listing what are the resins required? Also what are the issues with the kit. Picked one up for a really good price when I was in the States and was hoping to build it as a WHIF but may not if the corrections are gonna cost a fortune!

Well, you don´t NEED expensive resin sets. You can get far by using cheap plasticard and various types of wires as well.

The cockpit is bare, to say the least. What detail there is, isn't very accurate. The seats are, well as most kit seats are, bare. The pilot figures are scaled somewhere between 1/48 and 1/72.. they are too small, but you can source better pilot from somewhere else or leave them out. Anyway, not much of the cockpit is seen if the canopies are closed. The landing gears could use some TLC with various wires and added detail.

The thing is, even if you spend a fortune on new landing gears, resin cockpit and the resin intake with opened auxiliary doors, you still have the heavy panel lines and the shape errors to either fix or live with. The worst thing, for me at least, is that the sides in front of the intakes is rounded rather than flat. This flat area is a bit of what makes the TSR-2 a TSR-2..

But if you want to build it, just do it. As I said, you can get far with just a little of what you probably already got at home. If it´s a WHIF you can always explain differences from the prototype away with the fact that the prototypes were prototypes.. :-)

(image from Wikipedia)

BAC_TSR2_Cosford-01.jpg

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After colouring me astounded when the 1/72 TSR2 was released, I had to get the 1/48 version when it came out - even if it was likely just a scaled up version of the smaller scale one. Unfortunately, it wasn't and introduced some funky original features such as a tapered curve front fuselage and a kind of avionics hump on the spine, as well as heavy surface detail. Despite seeing some valiant attempts at correcting the flaws elsewhere, in the end I decided the Dynavector vacform kit would be far less trouble all round, as far as basic shapes and surface detail were concerned.

The only aftermarket sets I invested in for the Airfix were the etched wheel hub set from Eduard, some white metal landing gear legs (can't bear to look at TSR2s with splayed main wheels, so add some brass rod at the gear leg/trunnion junction and jig until set), and resin seats. I also chucked the mainwheels in a drill and squared off the profile while adding some treads with a razor saw held crossways.

There is a decent TSR2 hiding somewhere in the kit, but as I said I found the vacform version easier to get a decent end result from. And despite getting the various 'what-if' books with alternative schemes issued when the kit was, it ended up in classic anti-flash white.

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Well, you don´t NEED expensive resin sets. You can get far by using cheap plasticard and various types of wires as well.

The cockpit is bare, to say the least. What detail there is, isn't very accurate. The seats are, well as most kit seats are, bare. The pilot figures are scaled somewhere between 1/48 and 1/72.. they are too small, but you can source better pilot from somewhere else or leave them out. Anyway, not much of the cockpit is seen if the canopies are closed. The landing gears could use some TLC with various wires and added detail.

The thing is, even if you spend a fortune on new landing gears, resin cockpit and the resin intake with opened auxiliary doors, you still have the heavy panel lines and the shape errors to either fix or live with. The worst thing, for me at least, is that the sides in front of the intakes is rounded rather than flat. This flat area is a bit of what makes the TSR-2 a TSR-2..

But if you want to build it, just do it. As I said, you can get far with just a little of what you probably already got at home. If it´s a WHIF you can always explain differences from the prototype away with the fact that the prototypes were prototypes.. :-)

(image from Wikipedia)

BAC_TSR2_Cosford-01.jpg

Sounds good. Most likely end up as a UK bird in the white scheme but with operational sqn markings

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