Wings of Intent: February 2025

This is the completed Airfix kit post; for the step-by-step building article please go here:

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

The post of the (truncated) build of the Revell Rotodyne kit is here:

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

Both “in progress” posts offer comparisons between the kits and some notes on the actual machine and how both kits diverge from reality in this or that way. If you are building either of these kits, these in-progress posts give an account of the many important differences between the machines at the times depicted by Arfix and Revell (being the decals Revell uses for a later stage in life of the Rotodyne). None of the kits, as both are 60+ years old, are really accurate in several regards. Some of those things can be corrected with a bit of scratchbuilding and a few modifications. You will see, just as an example, that the wing of the Revell kit needs battens added to it and the props rotate the wrong way, and the Airfix kit needs its tail modified, plus in both kits the tip jets are the wrong shape, as the kit makers represented the initial version of them, almost immediately modified with a noise suppressor. These details among a myriad of them.

In what modern category the Airfix -and Revell for that matter- kits fall? They are both re-issues of old, not particularly accurate, not well engineered and not well-molded kits. Compared to modern kits (which is not unfair to do, as their respective manufacturers keep squeezing releases of them) they are crude, ill-fitting, riddled with sink holes, misalignments, and other kit maladies. I see only three reasons to buy or build these kits: subject appeal (which is very strong), nostalgia, or kit collecting. That is of course in case you care about modeling standards. If not, and this is for you just a mere sort of toy and you don’t mind much about the result, you may go ahead and have some fun. All these reasons are perfectly valid. But one phrase summarizes my experience with this kit: For every ton of effort you put in the build, you get a meager gram of improvement.

Any bad kit can be built, provided you have some skills and are willing to spend an inordinate amount of time and effort. The point being: is it worth it? At the end of that long road, would you have a replica that may be considered –at the very least- fair? Would the effort/reward ratio be reasonable? This blog is filled with such examples, completely outdated or just plain bad kits that got build to an acceptable or fair standard. But, as my many decades-long life as a modeler is giving signs that may not be eternal, I think I am becoming a bit choosy regarding how to spend time and resources. It’s clear that if any time and talents are left in me, they could be better employed in more rewarding kits or even scratchbuilds, of which I have dozens posted here, that are -contrary to what some may assume- far easier and far more rewarding than dealing with a bad/outdated kit. The latter are better collected –if you feel like- than built. Our hobby has walked a long path since its inception as an “industry”, and yet many early kits produced in other than injected plastic medium (resins, vacs) are still enjoyable and completely buildable, even older ones. So I am not talking necessarily about old kits, or other media kits, but about bad kits, of which the industry has produced plenty. This one is an example of a bad kit, seen in the light of today’s standards, and even compared to some of its contemporaries. This is, of course, and old kit, more than 60 years old at the time this is written, so is it fair to evaluate it? Well, the manufacturer has released this kit several times… the last in 2023, so fair game! All this is also completely valid (more so, actually) for the Revell Rotodyne. Being the real Rotodyne such an appealing machine, such an unusual design, such a potentially desirable subject, and having such poor kits to fulfill that desire is a loss to modeling. So I abandoned the Revell Rotodyne kit build closer to completion after many, many long hours of correcting stuff and struggle with its horrible quality and fit, and decided to build this Airfix Rotodyne almost out of the box, doing away with the gimmicky moveable parts and just adding a couple details and some interior. I abandoned the idea of significantly improving this kit almost at the beginning of the build, seeing what the kit had to offer… or more precisely not had to offer. Again, you can invest a year or more and perhaps do something of merit with this poor base material, but I rather spend my modeling time in a different way. This was a build for a fiend, having forgotten the grief of building this kit decades ago. If you must have a Rotodyne, it’s perhaps better that you choose the Airifx kit, as in spite the fact that the Revell kit has much more to offer in terms of (partial) accuracy and detail, all that is offset by basic mistakes in all departments of kit making, so much so that I abandoned the Revell Rotodyne build very close to its completion in utter frustration, and those who frequent this blog know that I don’t scare easily, having slain many a dragon. Plus with the Airfix kit you will have a consistent 1/72^nd scale model, instead of an odd and inexplicable 1/78^th one. And that’s my verdict regarding this comparative build. Still, valiant modelers have built both and some more or less fortunate examples can be seen on the Net. Does the modeling world need a Rotodyne? I believe it certainly does! But I am not sure either Arifix or Revell provide a suitable one, as these relics are 60+ years old, and it shows.

I modified the vertical fins (angling them outwards) to be realistic in the pose intended, added some interior in the form of generic flight engineering equipment (shown unfortunately not clearly in a couple images on the Net), "sagged" the blades and added a few parts to the rotor, again to have some resemblance of realism, added some probes, reshaped the tip jets, added nav lights and a light seen in photos on the pylon, plus a few other ancillaries.

Here is the plane that was used to advertise Howard Hughes’ movie “Hell’s Angels” and to transport its star, actress Jean Harlow. As a courtesy to the artist, a small restroom was included in the model. It can be seen in the link below.

The step-by-step build post provides more information on the plane and construction notes here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2024/06/fairchild-71-hells-angels-jean-harlow.html

The Fairchild 71 is one of those classic planes from the Golden Age of aviation that seems to irradiate magic and nostalgia. So far, the only manufacturer to pay homage to it is Lars Opland of the well known Khee-Kha Art Products in Alaska. Khee-Kha has delighted vac builders for decades producing a range of beautiful Golden Age vacs with nice detail and resin accessories:

https://www.opland-freeman.com/khee-kha/

Unfortunately now this particular kit is o.o.p., but they still offer other appealing kits and accessories.

The beautiful set for this unusual scheme was produced by Arctic Decals in Finland.

Lars, the kit manufacturer, pointed out a couple of missing details -a small black area at the apex of the triangular windows, and leading edge small extensions of the black color at the root- that are now added.