Part two of "Fairey Rotodyne, a Tale of Two Kits" - Airfix 172nd scale

This is part two of a double build of the Airfix and Revell Fairey Rotodyne kits. Part One is here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2024/12/fairey-rotodyne-tell-of-two-kits-airfix.html

As stated in part one, Airfix's kit is a less detailed offering (the Revell kit has a full interior), very rough regarding molding, with abundant  flash, mold lines, excrescences, with parts attached to their sprues with not enough space to use a Xuron to detach then, a few ill-located gates, some ejector pin marks that are difficult to deal with, and very crude small parts. Still, it is in 1/72nd scale (unlike the Revell kit, which is in the incomprehensible scale of 1/78th) and it's relatively affordable. Airfix has re-released this kit a few times, and this is actually the latest, from 2023 (I have an old edition somewhere in the house, but after days of looking for it I couldn't find it, as I stash the kits in places I sometimes forget about). I don't believe that Airfix thought this is a great kit that deserved re-release because of its quality or detail, both quite dubious, but I think this is marketed as a nostalgia kit, for those of us who have forgotten how challenging this kit was to build into a decent model the first time. I am one of many that has built it before...

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

...decades ago when I had no references. This is the old build:

 

Some preliminary comparisons are already stated in the part one post, I will refer those interested to it (link at the beginning of this post)
Whilst Revell correctly depicts the plane at rest, with the upper vertical fins inclined outwards, Airfix designed the model with the tail as if it where flying (which contradicts the static rotor, LG deployed, clamshell doors and pax doors opened, etc.). At rest, or powering up or down, as mentioned, the two upper vertical fins (and a central third fin when present) would lean to the sides, to avoid colliding with the rotor, which when not at speed had the blades prominently sagging.

The usual rattling packing:

Contents (with which many of us are familiar):

Clear parts:

Mold imperfections:

On these the cleaning has started:

Some flaws are minute, like this one, others are more noticeable:

Very crude, thick small parts that beg to be replaced by scratched items:

And after a day of preliminary cleaning here are the parts. Still some further refining and replacement to be done before starting assembly (stab struts, LG doors, etc will be scratched).

Since the movable clamshell doors arrangement is as toy-like as in the Revell kit, I will keep them shut, but the general idea is to open the cabin door and scratch some resemblance of the test flight engineering instrumentation that was present at the front of the cabin. The rotor blades will be slightly bent downwards to replicate the sagging at rest, and the two upper vertical fins modified to be inclined outwards to represent the real position of the craft at rest on land. Perhaps add a few details to the rotor head and blade axis that are too simplified in this kit. We'll see.

Masks arrived:

As with the Revell kit, the tip jets in this Airfix kit are inaccurate and based on earlier shapes, before noise-abatement measures were included in the developing program. Later versions -as described in both kits- had devices at the end of the jet of a conical shape, broad end aft. So here too they have to be modified.  

A few parts are assembled. In some cases the "locating" pins had to be obliterated to obtain a good match of the halves. The trailing edges of all flying surfaces have the thickness of a brick:

The props have heavy mold lines and a bit of mismatch. They needed careful sanding and polishing to eliminate their crudeness:

 

To be continued...