I was nosing about on various web sites the other day, looking for a kit that was affordable and needed by the Project. Just for fun I had a shufti at the Aviation Megastore in Amsterdam and saw the Xtrakit Scimitar there for an absolute song – even including postage. I knew there would be something wrong with it – but in fact all that was missing was the decal sheet. These are easily available, so I decided to get out all the sharpest scalpel blades and go for a wing fold conversion.
The kit is as before (sans decals, as I say), so there is little to discuss about it in general. The fun started when marking out the wing fold lines.
As you can see, not exactly a simple straight line. But, with perseverance and not a small amount of luck I was able to get to a “that will do” stage and could glue the wing halves up.
The inner sections then went onto the fuselage (using the same peg and hole adaptation as before), and I turned to the newly exposed surfaces.
I had lying around a Buccaneer wing fold conversion set from the days before the new Airfix Bucc.
So I cut, bent and generally coerced it around the Scimitar with, I think, reasonably convincing results.
Then it was a matter of paint, including a primer green on the inside of the wing. The scheme is for a Scimitar of 800NAS embarked on HMS Ark Royal (hence the ‘R’ on the 800NAS red tail) I had expected the wing interior to be either bare metal or white (to match the underside), but the Scimitar in the FAA Museum at Yeovilton has green primer.
With some dirt and some oil, it is quite convincing I think! BTW, I remember saying this once to my Dad about another kit I had done – saying that the dirt and oil made it look realistic, not that (I added) this was any commentary on the standards of FAA servicing but in wartime things such as Admiral’s Inspection Standard go out of the window. He just laughed – mainly at the idea that anyone would care. He said the oil showed the wing wouldn’t jam up or down, and the dirt showed that no spanner-hand had been messing around with it! Well, he has the right to say stuff like that…
Anyway, back to this aircraft and I wanted to add some stores to the outer wing pylons (the inner pylons having fuel tanks). I mused about buying some bombs or rocket packs, but instead opted to use some 25-lb bombs I had lying around and use them as practice rounds.
They look pretty good, especially when painted blue (as inert practice rounds were).
So, final assembly went well enough with the wings glued directly at a 90 degree angle and with a small piece of plastic sheet as a prop on the open side. This is painted red to act as the wing lock that was used when the aircraft was parked up. As a last flourish, I added some FOD (foreign object debris) guards for the engine intakes and exhausts and a ladder.
These come as a single photo etch sheet and are simple enough to assemble. Painted red, they give a nice finish to the aircraft. I also added some spare NACA duct covers and got some pre-painted rbf (remove before flight) tags for the bomb pylons and for a pitot head cover for the wing. Oh, and a wheel chock!
Overall I’m really happy with the way this has turned out. So much so that I’m going to add FOD guards to all my jets and rbf tags as needed.
So, what next? Perhaps a Nimrod Mk.1…
A really nice conversion you have there. The rbf and FOD covers add that little something to it too.
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Thanks mate, all these little extras can really make a model shine. Must try to do it with everything in future!
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