Wings of Intent

Saturday, March 15, 2025

Fairey Rotodyne, the Revell chapter - 1961 1/78th scale, completed

After no little struggle and temporary abandonment of the build in utter frustration, here finally is Revell's Fairey Rotodyne in 1/78th scale (aka the “why?” scale). It was built as a comparison exercise with Airfix’s Rotodyne:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2025/02/fairey-rotodyne-modified-airfix-172nd.html

…it is not a question of which one is better, but which one is less bad, and I don’t really have an answer to that, nor to why both companies insist on squeezing repeated releases of them without bothering to correct even the most glaring inaccuracies by improving the outdated molds. I know this would imply some cost, but to offer again and again such outdated, inaccurate, ill fitting kit is kind of a slap to the paying modeler, as this molds surely have been amortized long, long ago.

If you want to elevate your blood pressure -as mine did-, here is the step-by-step building post that is also a comparison of the Airfix and Revell Rotodyne kits, and presents some basic historical material:

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

Yes, they are very old kits, sixty-some years old, so… is it unfair to criticize them? Well, not if, as stated above, both companies insist on re-releasing them without making improvements at all. Both these kits are mostly for collectors or nostalgics, not for builders with any aspiration of accuracy or a smooth ride. Revell and Airfix’s Rotodyne kits are true dinosaurs, and yet unfortunately they are the only game in town for such aircraft. Both contain such a number of inaccuracies that their listing would occupy a couple of pages.

Revell offers the benefit of recessed panel lines and rivets, while Airfix regales us with cheese grater-like rivets. Revell offers more interior detail (most of it bogus or infantile), and a better rotor, although with detail mostly overstated. Revell’s front transparencies are utter crap, Airfix’s kit is perhaps –only marginally- more buildable. Revell has cleverer clamshell doors, while Airfix’s are crude and coarse. Airfix has a marginally better cabin entrance door, while Revell’s is in turn coarse and clumsy. None of them depict correctly the door's details.

As explained in the construction article and the Airfix Rotodyne completed model post, both companies depicted the aircraft at different stages in its life, and both as mentioned introduced plenty of inaccuracies, some of which were dealt with during both builds. The bad fit, poor engineering, outdated detail, and again very poor research on part of the kit makers puts both efforts almost in the toy, curiosity, build for the heck of it, or collector categories. Revell got wrong -among other inaccuracy pearls- the whole front of the aircraft and its clear parts, the propeller blades rotating in the wrong direction, forgot the ailerons that at this stage the wing had, forgot the battens on the wings added at the point in time the kit is represented, did not include the light on the rotor pylon, got the shape of the tip jets wrong, and on top of that gives the wrong color distribution on the instructions. Why, Revell, well done! After sixty years plus, you think someone at Revell would have cared enough to make some kind of corrections, at the very least to the instructions.

So, here it is, such as it is, after working quite a bit only to gain some meager improvement, for your modeling voyeuristic pleasure. Bear in mind that the Rotodyne never flew with the whole allotment of passenger seats as depicted in the kit, but reputedly for a short time with only half of them at the back. And during most of its life it flew with a suite of additional instruments to collect data, and no pax seats whatsoever, so this is to some extent a “what if” interpretation. I opted to show the model as provided for in the kit, in the form of a “cut away” display, also keeping the cabin doors and cargo doors opened. Not that the detail is brilliant, but puts it more in line with those travel agency props I used to look through the window when I was a kid. This is, among my later builds, the one that demanded more time and effort, and yet it’s the poorest.

Nostalgia is the key word here.

Now, imagine a good 1/72^nd kit of the very futuristic, beautiful and strange aircraft the Rotodyne is, produced at the standard the industry has today and not this unappetizing, ill fitting, poorly detailed refried beans from more than sixty years ago. A kit with good fit, well researched, with a fair interior and options to leave accesses opened. The fact that Airfix’s and Revell’s very poor Rotodyne kits keep apparently selling should entice someone, perhaps?

I think we mature (polite term for “old sod”) modelers like to revisit old kits, and I have built many, all in this blog for your visual pleasure, but there are old kits and old kits. We may accept simplicity, a certain degree of naïveté, “movable” parts, etc. But these two kits are certainly a challenge -and not precisely for their complexity- even for the most nostalgic of modelers.

Among other modifications:

-Addition of battens under and over the wings, as corresponds to the livery offered (timeline)-

-Addition of ailerons, present at the time the kit is depicted

-Pylon light, wingtip nav. lights

-Modified door to reflect reality

-Structural members added to clamshell doors

-Re-shaping of tip jets, inaccurate in the kit

-Reversion of the rotation of the props, which rotate the wrong way in the kit

-Addition of nose probes

-Removal of bogus exhausts and addition of home-made ones

-Substitution of some LG doors, as the kit's were too thick

-Addition of what seems like fuel tank vent pipes over the wings clearly seen in photos

-Removal of spurious "hunchback" after the compressor air intakes

-Bending of the rotor blades for a more realistic stance

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Sopwith Pup - Civil conversion of Airfix 1/72nd kit

Here is the completed model of J-TETV flying on the limpid skies of Japan. My thanks again to George Eleftheriou who provided the inspiration and the reference material for the build, and to Mika Jernfors of Arctic Decals for creating the set used on the model.

The step-by-step construction article with some notes is here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2025/03/sopwith-pup-j-tetv-adapted-airfix-172nd.html

Sopwith Pup J-TETV - adapted Airfix 1/72nd kit -in progress

(Photo from the Air Britain archive, summer 2002 issue)

(the completed model is here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2025/03/sopwith-pup-civil-conversion-of-airfix.html

The base for this model is the very old Airfix release that, according to Scalemates, dates from 1973, more than 50 years ago. HRModel released several versions of the Pup, but unfortunately none was available for purchase at the moment of looking for a kit to build the model.

The Airfix kit needs a little bit of TLC, as some things need correcting and others can be improved. I have already done some of that before on a model of G-EAVX, a Pup used for racing:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2016/11/sopwith-pup-1921-aerial-derby-arctic.html

Encouragement for representing this particular plane came from George Eleftheriou of Arawasi site fame, the link to his site is on the sidebar. George kindly contributed to the build with reference material and comments. If anything on the model happens to be not accurate, it's entirely my fault. Mika Jernfors of Arctic Decals provided the necessary transfers. To both, my gratitude.

It's a simple kit, and fair to a degree, but, as with many of its contemporaries, some effects are overdone, mainly the ribbing and "fabric" effect on all flying surfaces. The landing gear is a bit simplified, and some surface details on the fuselage are not very accurate or belong just to one of the many types of Pups that could be modeled. The interior offers a figure, a seat that's a bit on the heavy side, and a basic instrument panel. Notably, the fuselage interior structure and rigging is described up to the very tail, something of course quite unnecessary, as most of it is naturally hidden from view. It may be noticed in the photo of the box contents that a clear support for the model is provided, an atavism akin to the appendix in the human digestive system, still there after all these years of evolution, but not used. That detail gives up the age of this kit. Modelers may like to add at least a partial floor and a joystick. Under the fuselage nose there was a "V" cut out that modelers can reproduce if desired. Another cutout must be practiced at the very end of the fuselage, and a kingpost added. Some of these details were explained by Ray Rimmel in Scale Models June 1975. In this build I decided to sand down the overdone ribbing and fabric, something I had ignored in the previous build. It's not a complete cure, though. As the flying surfaces are quite thin, if you insist sanding, the recesses where the struts go will just open through. I ended up filling those recesses. That system of "united struts via an insert bridge" was created to help modelers with the biplane issues. Further help comes in the form of two wing setting supports. The plastic is surprisingly hard and somewhat brittle, so when sanding those too prominent ribs care must be taken as not to break the wings.

For this civil version of course the armament was deleted. This particular plane had exchanged the Pitot for a Venturi, mounted offset from the former's original place. The prop, prop boss and seat were replaced with aftermarket items and a few details added to the cockpit. The cowl was thinned from inside, so the openings at the bottom would look a bit more realistic. All control horns were deleted from the molds and replaced with photo-etched items. The kit provides a nicely (for the time) detailed engine, that even has the spark plugs! It's smaller than it should be, to be able to clear the thickness of the cowl plastic. The fin has a tab that inserts into the stab, but this was deleted as the fin did not actually touch the stab, but was anchored at a narrow distance from it with two metal tubes, thus the recess in the stab was filled. The fin has a very small pip, easily overlooked and sanded off, that is in fact where some rigging anchors, so don't remove it! The recesses under the top wing where the strut "bridge" originally inserted were filled too as explained, taking care at the same time of three ejector pin marks.

Surprisingly, and like the Fairey Rotodyne I recently built, Airfix re-released the Pup quite recently. And exactly like with the Rotodyne, I am not sure that the kit, which is visibly outdated, merited that. I bought some of the really new Airfix's releases, fine molds at contemporary standards, so I don't understand why Airfix insists on releasing over an over kits that are way sub-standard for today's market. Some of them, like the Rotodyne, irrecoverably so.

The old blister (99 cents!):

Contents, complete with Airfix's marketing gimmicks:

The succinct amount of parts, plus atavistic base and discarded decals:

Detail that will never be seen on the aft fuselage interior:

The contrite pilot:

Not the surface detail for this particular version:

The too-pronounced fabric effect and ribbing, a common manufacturing sin of those times:

The tongue at the base needs removal, the fabric effect is -as in general on this type of kit- exaggerated. The control horns needs replacing:

Watch out while sanding, or those locations for the "strut bridge" will open on the top (a "trick" supposed to help the modeler with alignment that in turn creates other problems):

Sanding the wings to improve things to some degree:

And the stab:

Not so bad engine, considering the manufacturing date:

All parts cleaned up

Aftermarket replacements:

Cut out on the chin for accuracy, and wings' guides:

Aft fuselage cut out:

Detail that needs modifying:

More aftermarket parts to the help:

Filling the inaccurate fin location, removing the fin's tongue, modifying the aft fuselage:

Removing a triangular section for accuracy:

Thinning down the cowl and making some mods:

Filling those "strut bridge" locations and ejector pin marks:

Adding a little detail to the LG:

And somewhat more ready now:

Replacing the LG bar:

Pilot's position:

Some airbrushing:

Aftermarket control horns installed:

Rigging holes drilled:

More painting:

The kit's engine, necessarily much smaller than scale to clear the cowl walls, but not unfairly detailed (all things considered). Committed modelers may replace it with a "Small Stuff" resin engine of superb quality: