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Fairey Gannet, Marinefliegergeschwader 3


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Hello,

 

First build for the Group Build, and it will be a Gannet! :banana: Everyone's favorite, I know.

 

I will be using the 1/72 Revell kit, completely OOB. The kit comes with decals for 3 different birds with MFG.3 and MFG.2, based at Schleswig-Jagel and Nordholz respectively.

 

I started a couple days ago. It's quite a detailed kit, with good cockpit detail and an open weapons bay. Sadly no folding wings, but you can drop the flaps.

 

Construction started with the large bits that make up the weapons bay, nose gear bay, and the cockpit on top of that. The engine exhausts are mounted on the sides of this construction. The cockpit now has a coat of good old British cold war happy black:

 

P3135468_zpseca13xjv.jpg

 

P3135469_zpsbl1otl1d.jpg

 

P3135467_zpsp9f1rzx9.jpg

 

The interior of the fuselage has some more of that cheerful black:

 

P3135470_zps0wzmvj1q.jpg

 

And of course the instrument panels and walls too, this should look pretty decent after some detailing and drybrushing:

 

P3135472_zpsg9j48jwp.jpg

 

Such a looker, isn't it?

 

PA300476_zps4mqnx3a9.jpg

Edited by Pete
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Ahh, the Gannet is so ugly that it already becomes something special. Just saw a real one on saturday and thought, man! It's big!

Nice to see you making a more seldom model airplane for our GB!

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Thanks guys. This is kit number 04397. The 2007 release, licensed by Westland, I just noticed. 10 years later now, and Westland isn't even called that anymore. Ah, the ever changing British defence industry..... :rolleyes:

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Well then, Revell wants you to glue the sidewalls of the cockpit in place first, and then slide the instrument panels and rear walls in place after that. Too bad that doesn't work, as some of them have to fit in slots inside the sidewalls. So I had to break one off again to make it fit, snapping the control column off too.

 

Ah well:

DSC_0344_zpsmwczom1q.jpg

 

I painted the seats in some reddish brown color, kinda like a Spitfire seat. I guess they were made of the same material. I also sanded the upper corners a bit rounder.

DSC_0345_zpskc8rwvoz.jpg

 

The little windows in front of the rear cockpit will have to be filled for this version:

DSC_0346_zpsz7kexhuj.jpg

 

Edited by Pete
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I am recovering well, yes. But it's a bit like 2 steps forward, 1 step back. The plastic of this kit is quite brittle, and the way it's engineered doesn't make it easier. The tailhook has already snapped into 3 pieces, for example. And since the kit comes with all kinds of moveable parts, including the tailhook, things are quite fragile.

 

Anyway, the fuselage has been closed, with a good chunk of lead in the nose:

P3265473_zpsppcum6wo.jpg

 

The seats come with passable decal seatbelts. I suppose it will look OK under the canopies:

P3265474_zpsc6q9m9vf.jpg

 

The wings have been glued together. Dry fitting these to the fuselage shows some problems on the underside.

P3265475_zps0ovrwndh.jpg

 

The radome under the fuselage is one of the moveable things in the kit. I don't really see the point of it, because you either have to glue it in the stowed raised position, or it drops down to the deployed position. It would have been much easier to paint the lower fuselage if you could add this radome afterwards.

P3265476_zpsmznajxtg.jpg

 

This kit is much more challenging than the Fw-200 that was released around the same time, also by Revell. Oh well.

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I'm sorry to hear about the brittle plastic. It seems like an crap shoot with Revell. My gannet had nice plastic (as far as I remember), but I just got a Eurofighter, and it feels like its made from wafers!

 

 

Could just be all that flash :) 

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Weehh, always the same with Revell! You can catch a gem or a dog. Seams it depends where the moulds were made and where the casting is done. AFAIK the stuff coming from S.Korea usually is fine. Not all kits are like Rafale or Strike Eagle...

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Wings!

 

It took some cutting and grinding, but I got them to fit nicely. The kit comes with deployable flaps, but it seems they were in the up position when on the ground, so that's what I did.

 

P4015478_zpsimmo8fz5.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks guys.

 

I'm focusing a bit more on another build at the moment, but I should be working on this one again this week. I'm a bit puzzled by the radome under the fuselage. Revell wants you to paint it black, but I'm having trouble to find proper reference shots that clearly show a black radome. Anyone got any clues?

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  • 3 months later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Well, alas. Missed the deadline. Lack of mojo, some fit issues with the kit, the photobucket thing, and busy with work. And maybe just me being lazy.

 

But, at least I finished it, so there is a silver lining. Hopefully I will be more motived again in the future.

 

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JCWMzaa.jpg

 

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