Fairey Rotodyne, a tale of two kits: Airfix 1/72nd and Revell 1/78th

 (This post -after some preliminary comparisons- will depict the Revell kit build, the parallel build of the Airfix kit is here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2024/12/part-two-of-fairey-rotodyne-tale-of-two.html

Sometimes we just can't have enough of a certain design we like. By default I don't like to build the same kit...unless I MUST. Several examples of this weakness are spread along the pages of this blog. Long ago I built Airfix's rendition of the Fairey Rotodyne, an old (1959) and pretty rough kit, so covered in prominent rivets of very hard plastic that it could be used as a block file for wood, plastic or plaster. The kit has those sort of puerile features considered "detail" in those times, like "operating" aft fuselage clamshell doors. The fit of course is rather horrible, the cabin is a barren void, and subtlety was still in the future of kit making. At the time I first built it, I had no references, and my modeling skills were in its first stages of development (and still are after decades). 

This is the link to the old build of the Airfix kit (decades old):

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2014/07/172-airfix-fairey-rotodyne.html

Wanting to scratch the current Rotodyne itch, I bought again the Airfix kit, and the equally old and odd-scaled Revell kit, coming from a time where manufacturers gave a rat's ass about scale consistency. The Revell kit is similarly outdated presenting again the same issues, but offers the possibility of showing a very stiff, toy-like, and primitive interior, the way travel agency models were displayed (travel agencies, for you fledglings, were physical business where you acquired physical airplane tickets and could get help programming your traveling adventures, in the times where people still dressed like they cared to board a plane, and behaved like civilized passengers). The two kits were sleeping the sleep of the just in a crag of the closet, when fellow aviation enthusiast, fern-bandit and dedicated mathematician David the Uncontainably Tall manifested the unquenchable desire of having a replica of the discussed machine. Oh, the joy. Which kit should I use? Should I build one for him and the other for me? Should I kit-bash the two kits, for example grafting the Revell interior in the Airfix fuselage? Would the scale difference (damn you, Revell!) interfere or be noticeable? For what I can see in photos, seats were not installed in the actual Rotodyne, but a book I bought on the subject states that the aft half of the seats was at some in place. A few images show data equipment at the cabin front. Should I replicate that instead? The clamshell doors are so pathetically depicted and their fit is so despicable on both kits that it would perhaps be better to glue them shut? Oh, kit building philosophy! Ah, the disquisitions and reveries of the poetically-inclined modeler.

Another adventure begins, jumping into the time tunnel of model-making to 1959 and 1961...

Some notes:

-On repose, the rotor blades sagged significantly, a feature that needs replicating if the model is posed so.

-Associated with that state, the outer vertical fins must be angled out, as otherwise they would be hit (in real life) by the rotor if it somehow turns or starts to rotate.

-Photos show mainly two schemes, one with the Fairey logo and the word "Rotodyne" on the rotor pylon (plus Fairey logo on the forward fuselage) and the engine gondolas unpainted, and another with the whole "Fairey Rotodyne" legend on the pylon and the engine gondolas painted in the same color bands motif as the fuselage (no logo).

-A photo on the previously described scheme shows a third central vertical tail, an attempt at better aerodynamics.

-Photos of the frame unpainted show additional strut supports for the main LG and other tail mods.

To make the build easier I bought a set of masks (for the Airfix kit, the Revell kit has none offered) and a book on the subject. I also stocked 20,000 sheets of sandpaper and a 100-gallon drum of putty, knowing the kind of "vintage" kit I would have to deal with.

Airfix’s and Revell’s approch (known in the manufacturing world as "JIT") to sink holes and flash was a technical achievement of simplicity: “Just Ignore Them!”

If flash would a currency, you would have been able to recover the kit’s cost with largess.

Surprisingly, the stupid-scale (1/78^th) Revell kit is much, much more detailed than the Airfix kit, and to a (coarse) degree more accurate. The number of parts on the Revell kit is outstanding, as it covers (unlike the Airfix kit) a fully detailed interior, structural detail, and “actionable” parts, plus pilots, porter, and passenger figures -all rather pathetic for today’s standards. It also allows, through alternate parts, to display the model in a sort of “travel agency” cutaway format. All in all, for the time, a terrific kit…nowadays it’s just sort of terrifying.

It looks a bit as it the Revell guys (who released their kit a couple years later than Airfix, in 1961 according to the stamp on the kit's plastic) were saying “let’s show them”. And show them they did, in a way. Their rivets and panel lines are recessed, not in relief, their fins show the correct outwards angle to avoid the rotor blades at rest and at the beginning of start rotation and as winding down, and they even include a central fin that was at some point added

So, the REVELL kit:

Kit's parts galore:

Very clear transparencies, but notice that the nose, a single part on the Airfix kit, has here individual glass panes, surely with a perfect fit and easy to add...🙄

Full allotment of seats. The book I purchased 

 

states that only half of them were added in 1959 on the aft fuselage:

 

The zombie crew and passengers (and even a porter):

Nice ejector pin marks:

Look, mom, the cockpit door comes half open!:

The joys of old kits wrongly packed or stored...

The cabin floor seemingly had a depression at its center through which liquids may run...🙄

But here we see the nicer surface of the stupid-scale Revell kit, with engraved panel lines and sunk rivets, instead of Airfix's cheese grater surface "detail":

Year of the kit's moldings 1961:

Cleaning mold lines and flash ensues. The kit as mentioned has the central fin that the plane used at some point. As the external ones are inclined outwards (as per resting on the ground position), the central fin is also inclined to one side producing an asymmetric look. Not sure I like that, and may fill the slot it goes into to discard it, TBD:

Some of the fuselage interior parts have been already glued:

The rotor blades attempt much more detail than the Airfix kit, if a bit simplified and exaggerated. The shape and detail on the tip jets is not good. Here the back of the tip jets has been drilled. Reality was more complex:

Sink holes and ejector marks on the tip jets:

Ejector pin marks:

Some of the smaller parts are cleaned too. This was a PITA that required several hours. The exhausts on a couple parts was opened. Some parts were not cleaned as they were too coarse and will be replaced with scratched items. Throughout the kit, many ejector pin marks (on the a visible side) will need filling and sanding, the detail restored, etc.; a very boring task that is nonetheless necessary:

Cleaning of the many seats will follow, as they are plagued with flash. With the figures I won't be bothering, as they are somewhat ridiculous in their detail, pose and stiffness. Commercial ones are available -if desired- that are much better.

Seats finally cleaned up:

Ejector pin marks puttied:

The fit overall is somewhat vague, as expected; volumes and edges don't match properly. Much puttying and sanding is in the future. Not sure why Revell, after providing some many detail parts, chose not to render the four exhausts as independent moldings and present them as inaccurate shapes that will have to be masked as they have a different color:

The collection of mutants after some cursory clean up:

It's obvious that the notorious vibrations experienced by the Rotodyne have affected these passengers, turning their bones into gelatin:

Here we can see Lady Toomanymartinis and Lady Lighthead, accompanied by a perhaps too evidently lecherous sir John Drinkstoomuch, O.B.E., S.O.B.:

A quick inspection of some of the parts revealed a curious trend -already mentioned Re. the exhausts-, i.e., in spite of the obvious intention of providing plenty of detail, some areas are treated poorly. As an example we see the control columns, not included as separate parts but rendered as completely inaccurate straight sticks molded on the floor. Same for the rudder pedals (whilst detailed radio racks and even a toilet -gasp!- are provided). The too simplified main landing gear legs are missing the -obvious in photos- three dampeners per leg.

Other parts are glued together, again not the best match of the halves:

The grayish "metal" color of the plastic has a strange unintended effect: once you have removed a seam or a mold line, somehow it appears to be there anyway, because of certain change in color of the plastic or perhaps a minute amount of translucency. A coat of primer will eventually reveal the truth, so it will be better to prime sub-assemblies separately to correct any possible imperfections, than to prime the whole model after general assembly. and having to deal then with seams and imperfections.

As pertaining to the book I bought (pictured somewhere above), it is good and worth buying if you are interested on the type, but it's more of a technical nature, and many photos are small and lacking adequate contrast, so not of great help specifically for modelers but interesting for aviation enthusiasts nonetheless. Still, it states some facts useful for the modelers and some images can be put to good use on the build.

One way to deal with the sunken area in the middle of the cabin floor, is to tape around it and apply putty generously. Once sanded down, it will create a carpet-like surface:

Washing the parts that are ready for painting:

Drying them. Of course, if don't feel confident about separating all those minute parts because you later may not be able to identify them, just leave them on the trees until needed. For the same token, if you are not confident enough...this may not be a kit for you:

I am feeling inclined to build the model as one of those "travel agency" displays, taking advantage of the kit's extra parts. This may imply taking some liberties, for example using parts that never made it -afaik- to the real plane, like bathroom, amenities, and the full allotment of seats. In reality, for what I am reading and as mentioned before, at some point only half the seats were installed, maintaining flight engineering instrumentation at the front. Maybe I will use the Airfix kit (that comes void of any detail) to represent the plane as it flew, adding some detail. We'll see...

Some ejector pin marks are dealt with. Sink holes will follow:

The tail group is assembled. The fit here was good, provided you did a clean up:

Now comes the moment of philosophical modeling decisions; what can you live with and what you can't. The sort of bridles that were wrapped around the tip jets, completely spurious, were sanded down. But there is another issue, as this type o jet shape was there only at the very beginning, before noise attenuation devices were incorporated:

To the left, the kit's rendition (inaccurate for the decal scheme offered), to the right the actual shape. This may be achieved by removing the "tail" of the kit's part, reversing it, and gluing it back. We'll see:

Another spurious detail product of making the kit into a movable toy. Those hinges do not resemble reality, and will have to go, together with the smaller parts associated with the mechanism. I will assume that the internal rib and stringer structure of the clamshell doors (visible in all photos that portray that section) was covered in service, and will simply erase the kit's detail and glue them open to take advantage of the interior provided. From outside only thin hinge fairings were visible in reality:

The toy-like, over-scale, crude stair. Will have to be replaced:

The jet solution worked, just sanding a little the back of the shape still attached to the blade, and a bit of putty shall do the trick smoothing things out. Notice an angular nick of the blade TE, seen in some photos:

Some base colors are airbrushed:

The unconvincing exhausts are removed, taking care of leaving the "lip" at the front:

 

A plastic tube (metal would do too, but didn't have any of the proper diameter) is drilled inside to reduce the wall, laterally-compressed with the help of softening boiling water, the edges shaped and further reamed:

The tube will be inserted at an outward angle as per photos of the original, further carving the hole to accept it:

Supporting structure visible in photos is added:

Locating holes for two lights visible in photos are drilled (not through:

More ejector pin marks fixed:

Another airbrushing session:

Hey, and what is this? What some naughty modelers get for xmas! The kit includes a toiled! The bowl was carved and a lid was added to improve it, more painting to follow:

The inst. pan has neither relief nor a decal for it. So some A.M. instruments are added. A few of the kit's details are ready now to add at the end of the build:

And guess what... Revell got the propeller rotation the WRONG WAY (the Airfix kit got that right). The props, looking at the craft standing on front of it, should rotate clockwise. Sigh...

Possible solution: as the blades have (inaccurately) no washout, they can be cut off and re-inserted via a metal pin, pitch reversed. This will help with other mishap, that is the spinner creates a seam not present in the original and very difficult to putty and sand with the blade in the way. So... cut the blades off, glue blades' disc to spinner, smooth seam, drill blade positions, re-insert blade reversed. Why, thanks Revell! You just added -unnecessarily- more work hours to the build!

Holding the fuselage sides together, a square hole where a light goes is filed:

The prop blades are cut from their disc. Before gluing the spinner or sanding the burrs, the blade locations are drilled using the circle left by the cut as a guide. Then the spinner is glued (the disc is sided). This as explained will be puttied, sanded, the blades attached with their correct pitch, and all will be repainted:

Metal pins on:

 

And remember, as the country sinks into a new dark age thanks to election political suicide, and the incompetent, criminal, greedy, slime-balls, vulgar, ignorant, and taliban-like local religious fanatics -bent on imposing their extreme views by force to everybody- take power in a few weeks...:

And do what you can to preserve democracy, kindness, tolerance, respect for science, critical thinking, empathy, ethics, and please give whatever joy you can muster to your fellow Americans, even something as little and menial as sharing the fun of building models.

 

The toy-like strand of this kit can be further assessed by the clumsy "retainers/spigots" molded into the wheel and prop axles, supposedly to "pop" on the other side of the retained part:

This kit is definitely not for children, but for modelers with some experience, that are in most cases grown-ups. No idea why Revell went "snap together" here, as the skill required otherwise is clearly above "pop the part" level.

The pylon structure and associated parts is, of course, a very a bad fit (to the cavity it goes in, and of all the parts involved) that needs reworking (with all the parts painted and assembled, thanks again, vintage Revell):

You can always count on evilbay and crap-a-zone to surprise you every so often with a marred kit. Mine had a part missing, another badly bent, and a cracked fuselage front. The crack became a missing bit. Here a styrene stick of adequate section is bent to shape:

The fuselage sides taped (guess what...oh! you did guess! you are becoming very good at this, yes, the fit is horrid!). The alignment pins are actually miss-alignment pins!

The spinners are sanded with a (very slow, to avoid heat) rotation in the chuck to match the prop discs and have a symmetrical shape:

The ceiling is almost ready, lacking only home-made lenses for which I drilled the two existing positions. The cockpit/cabin needs parts added and detail picked-up in color:

The cockpit has three holes for the front landing gear that goes below, which shouldn't have shown on the upper side (besides the above-mentioned issue of incorrect joysticks and absent rudder pedals):

Now, the AIRFIX kit:

Crude, outmoded, outdated...and yet re-released in...2023! I know there is a market for nostalgia kits, but really? One grace: is in 1/72nd scale, unlike the inexplicable 1/78th scale Revell effort:

Airfix's Maraca school of packing. One bag has all parts rattling around (but transparencies in separate bag!):

As we all know, plenty of flash, some mold damage that Airfix didn't bother to fix resulting in a few excrescences...

Lack of finesse and coarse detail...

And yet in some way adorable. We modelers are incorrigible, and kit makers know it, and exploit it!

Very clear transparencies. If memory serves, the clear nose fit needs quite a bit of work to match...as it does everything else:

Curiously, Airfix depicts the Rotodyne in an early stage (Fairey logo and other details as commented somewhere above), still with the 4 degree wing incidence, whilst Revell depicts a later version, with a slightly different scheme (also described somewhere above) and the wing seemingly with the same incidence, which is inaccurate as the wing later in life was re-positioned with 0 incidence . Both decal sheets present a hue of blue that I deem too dark. Fairey used a sort of powder blue, a very beautiful shade, similar to Grabber Blue or French Blue, which was used in the decal sheet of previous releases of the Airfix kit (see photo of my old model above at the beginning of the post). I will be comparing a few things, but for purposes of clarity, I am creating another post just for the Airxif kit build here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2024/12/part-two-of-fairey-rotodyne-tale-of-two.html

Masks for Airfix's Rotodyne arrived. No such luck for Revell's:

Working on the interior. The dream of many modelers, some of them Canadian: a toilet!:

The pylon sub-assembly structure was a pain to assemble and then to fit properly. Nothing worked properly and all parts had to be adjusted multiple times. I have seen builds online where modelers just give up in frustration, toss this assembly and just close the pylon with the lid provided:

 The cockpit still needs a few components and replacements. The home-made lenses can be seen on the ceiling:

The ceiling has detail on the other side in case you leave the pylon open:

A dry-run to iron any fit wrinkles. Look at that proud toilet in the back!:

 The clear pars are cleaned up and given a a coat of acrylic:

New joysticks are made of aluminium tube:

Nose landing gear in place. Added missing belts, rudder pedals and door window:

Inst. pan. in place with spares bin decals (the kit provides none, and the panel has no detail molded):

The transparencies, that come in tiers, are glued. But then you have to deal with painting over the connecting clear bits now over the fuselage walls. That was Revell trying to be helpful...:

 

The fuselage sides are drastically coerced into position:

Even if you manage to align the sides, the poor molding has a "lip", exaggerated in the sketch below. So a lot of sanding in the horizon. Some panel lines align, and some don't:

Well, it certainly looks more promising than a week ago:

The new exhausts:

The rotor is assembled. Although a bit heavy-handed and not completely accurate, Revell's rotor is more detailed and depicts reality better than the Airfix rendition:

The handrail is bogus, look at photos of the real thing to it and the other supports:

 

 

Only after profuse filing, sanding and general adjusting that lasted for an hour did the engine nacelles agree to join the wings. Horrid fit:

The support and slot for the third vertical fin, added only later in the life of the Rotodyne, is deleted:

Unlike the Airfix kit, the Revell kit does not include four pips associated with the wing fuel tanks. Locations for them are drilled:

NOTE:

Neither Revell nor Airfix depict the battens seen over and under the wing in photos. These, that were added mid-way on the program, will have to be added using styrene sticks of the proper size and shape.

Gaping seams to fill, plus Revell completely overdid the volume immediately after the compressor intake on the wings. The relief needs sanding down quite a bit and the opening needs enlarging. I don't understand this kind of blatant mistakes on part of lazy manufacturers. I am sure photography, even color photography existed 60 years ago? Was it too much of a hassle to gather photos of the aircraft your kit manufacturing company was designing? Considering the clout of Revell at the time?:

NOTE:

If the Rotodyne is in livery with the Fairey logo (Airfix kit), only a left wing trim tab is present in photos, which Airfix molded. If with the full Fairey Rotodyne lettering and no logo (the Revell kit being assembled here), AILERONS on both wings are present in photos, which the kit fails to represent. The literature I have at hand mentions that roll control was established via the rotor (cyclic control). Well, apparently ailerons needed to be installed later (part of the many changes during the developing program), so on the Revell kit you have to engrave both ailerons (bedsides adding the wing battens mentioned above). 

Work on the area behind the compressor intakes begins:

Not sure in which category this very old Revell kits falls into. Nostalgia? Practice kit? Surely you have to do a LOT to bring this fossil to acceptable standards. Here some holes are covered with styrene sheet and other interventions marked.

I am using a water-soluble filler for the yawning gap at the nacelle/wing seam. This is a product that has its uses, but unfortunately, no matter how careful you are, it unavoidably dries up in the tube making you discard it half-used and having to buy another, and begging it's new, as I have bought some that come "pre-dried up" due probably to short shelf life. The hole in the nose intake is also enlarged. Revell failed to represent the rim intake:

The fuselage is taped to begin smoothing the very prominent seams. The prop blades are masked to paint the tips yellow:

Rotor with base coat:

Ailerons engraved and battens added top and bottom as corresponds to this stage in the airframe development:

As you can see, just correcting the wings alone to make them more accurate and detailed, took the time that usually takes me to build a small kit.

A long session of sanding the fuselage too prominent and difficult to eliminate seams:

The front leg of the landing gear (that you have to install before closing the fuselage) was predictably broken because of a snag during sanding.

The wings are given a coat of primer. Holes for the nav lights are drilled at the tips, the "sticks" coming out of the wing are added. Prop blades are readied:

Rotor:

Hinge fairings were made and glued in their eight positions, on fuselage and doors:

The fit of ALL the transparencies but one (the one ticked in blue) is really bad. The lip with the red arrows needs complete re-contouring, as it's completely off:

You may peruse this blog and find a number of very poor kits that I have nonetheless somehow managed to build (with much cursing and hard work many times) into an -at least- somewhat fair replica. This Revell old, outdated, outmoded 60+ years old relic is among the very worse, and I regret having even started it. That'll teach me. This is a collectors' kit, not a builders' kit.

All the transparencies have a bad fit (even those on the fuselage sides that come linked), as it's the case with the rest of this kit. I had to rework each clear nose panel and some frames on the nose, and still the results are not what I want them to be. At this point the only remaining step is masking, painting, and do the general assembly adding the tail, wings, etc. This will surely take yet another large amount of hours, and then I will have a model that will not pay off for the extraordinary load of work put in it, half of which was just to correct the many aberrations of this mediocre kit. Also of consideration is that the decals are a too dark blue. Airfix in its new releases committed the same mistake, a too dark blue, unlike in its earlier editions, which had the correct hue (as per photo of my earlier model of the Airfix kit at the beginning of this post).

I think I will call it quits with this disgrace of a kit. 

It pains me to trash this build as I invested, as explained above, an inordinate amount of work and long hours, but I don't think it would be paying back when completed anyway. As they say regarding business, "don't throw good money after bad":

I will continue now with the Airfix build in this thread below to see if that one can arrive to a better standard:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2024/12/part-two-of-fairey-rotodyne-tale-of-two.html