Thunder & Lightnings - de Havilland Sea Vixen

A brief rundown of the various model kits available of the Sea Vixen - as I know Thunder & Lightnings is visited by so many modellers!

The only option that I know of in this scale is from Tokiwa Aircraft Create (TAC) of Japan. It's an FAW.2 only, resin, expensive (3000 Yen - around £21), hard to find... and looks to have some serious shape issues judging by photos of built-up kits, looking more like a caricature of the real thing than an accurate model. Decals are provided for XN649 of 899 NAS.

The Sea Vixen (and DH-110) is available in a number of forms in 1/72 scale; however, there is no single 'must get' kit with all of them exhibiting various faults.

de Havilland Sea Vixen
Model Kits

Frog DH-110 - a real rarity these days, and very much a collectors' item, fetching extremely high prices when it does pop up from time to time on eBay. Reportedly a very basic kit with some outline errors.

Whirlykits DH-110 - a much more recent vacform kit, but no longer readily available.

Frog FAW.2 - a much-reboxed kit, this one, originally from the mid 1970s. Also marketed by Novo, Modelcraft, Eastern Express and (to their eternal shame), Revell (from whom it is still a current product). This is a pretty basic injection moulded kit, with fairly well done raised detail. Unfortunately it suffers from a variety of flaws, the major ones being that the shape of the fuselage is distinctly 'off' (too fat, nose looks too short, canopy too high). Some people 'correct' this by adding a small extension between the radome and fuselage, making it longer (too long in fact), but the 'look' is better as a result. The canopy really does sit too proud though, and that is the major appearance problem. The fit of the parts varies with the moulding you buy, and in general this is an old and tired kit that is somewhat past it's sell by date. Unlike every other Sea Vixen kit it does offer a folded wing option - and strangely comes with extra outer wing sections to cater for this, when it would have been easy enough not to bother with different ones for the different position. It is one of only three injection moulded Vixens available in this scale, and is cheaper than the MPM/Xtrakit kit, but needs similar amounts of correctional work to produce an accurate model.

Magna Models FAW.1 conversion - resin conversion for the Frog kit, with replacement tail booms and wing inserts - reportedly similar quality to Magna's complete kits (see below), and hard work to marry up to the Frog kit successfully.

Magna Models FAW.1 / FAW.2 - two resin & white metal kits, issued by Magna in the mid 1990s. From inspection of the FAW.2 it looks a bit like the Frog kit overall - wouldn't be surprised if the master was basically a rescribed Frog kit. Engraved detail overall but it wobbles a bit in places and isn't square on where it should be in others. The pilot's canopy area is moulded as part of the top fuselage half and is very much like the inaccurate Frog representation of this area, and the aircon/rain clearance tube doesn't go back far enough. No cockpit detail at all - just a white metal ejector seat (and none for the observer). Late style observer canopy is provided as a vacform transparency, you need to hack out a big hole in the top fuselage half and build the observer's cockpit from scratch if you want to use it. Radome too short. Jetpipes basic and far too shallow; arrestor hook moulded closed (and poorly done), nose gear bay shallow and mostly closed off, with a hole for the nose gear leg that is in entirely the wrong place (middle of the bay instead of forward edge). Main gear bays deeper but no detail and again locating holes for legs in the wrong place. Intake tunnels present but no compressor faces. Vertical tails correctly shaped but as with Xtrakit, they have moulded the large half-cone bits at the rear of the horizontal stabiliser as part of the tail rather than part of the stab. Wings basic; fuel dump pipe poorly done, no wing fold detail. Lots of thin flat parts (missile fins, wing fences, airbrake strakes, some gear doors, intake splitter plate) are supplied on a single wafer of resin and this has warped badly. Even if it hadn't, sanding the other side to free them would be a hell of a job and it'd be much easier to replace these parts with plastic card. White metal is used for gear legs, Red Top missiles, pylons. Lots of flash but the legs and missiles look good. No decals. For the high price (nearly £30) and limited availability these days, you're better off looking at other options.

High Planes 1/72 FAW.1/FAW.2/D.3 - a limited run injection moulded kit, issued in 2002. Still available from Australian retailers, a little more tricky to get hold of in the UK, and a bit pricey as a result (anywhere between £15 and £20). For accuracy of shape, this is the current leader of the field, with the fuselage, nose, canopy and tail booms all looking much more accurate than the Frog or Xtrakit/MPM kits. It also has more accurate surface detailing and a good ejector seat. On the negative side I think the pinion tanks are a bit too fat, the top of the fins need the same work as the Xtrakit one, and it looks like it'll be a fettling nightmare to get everything to fit (mind you, same can be said for the Xtrakit). Cockpit is basic but a fairly decent basis for further detailing (though there is nothing - not even a seat - for the observer). No engine detail; no option for flaps, arrestor hook or airbrake to be down, and no folded wing option either. Altogether considerably more basic in feel than the Xtrakit, but streets ahead of the Frog kit and in general the most accurate 1/72 Sea Vixen available. It will be a challenge to build and really is for the experienced modeller but this gets my thumbs up - recommended.

Xtrakit 1/72 FAW.2/D.3 - injection moulded plastic with a small selection of resin parts, issued in 2008. This kit looks like it was rushed out, and suffers from various flaws. While initial impressions are good, some of the finely recessed surface detailing is fictional, there are various moulding flaws evident (in particular the tip of the radome is blunt or holed in every single kit) and almost all of the resin parts (ejector seats, radar boot, refuelling probe mount etc.) are either massively underscale or overscale and utterly useless as a result. Actually trying to put the kit together you will find very few parts actually fit without a struggle; the engine faces are entirely fictional, the jet pipes far too shallow (though the resin rear faces of the engine turbines are nicely done), the canopy shape is all wrong, the nose is off (too thin and pointy, and the belly too bulged), boxy aerial fairings under the fuselage are missing, bulges on the large main gear doors are missing, wingfold hinge fairings are the wrong shape and length, the instructions would have you put the fuel dump pipe on the wrong wing, the arrestor hook bay is the wrong shape, tailfin tops are too high and curved, wingtips similarly off in shape, intake guide vanes missing, cockpit looks like a good effort but apart from the two instrument panels is a bit of a waste of space - much correction and scratch building needed. The FAW.2 is made by adding tail boom extensions on top of the basic FAW.1 layout, and these extensions fit very badly, and are too long. The only underwing stores provided are drop tanks - no missiles or rocket pods. To make an accurate Sea Vixen from this kit you need to put in quite a lot of work - but then, to put it together out of the box you need to put in quite a lot of work too! Decals are good, though the D.3 option needs you to scratch build the fairings on the wing tips. No option for flaps, arrestor hook or airbrake to be down. Wings could be posed folded if you scratch built the entire hinger area, as the outer wings are separate, but there is basically nothing in the kit that helps you position them in anything other than the spread position. This kit is basically a missed opportunity - Xtrakit/MPM could have made every other kit obsolete if they'd just made more of an effort. Worryingly, Hannants (the people behind Xtrakit) refuse to provide a parts replacement service with this kit (unlike any other manufacturer), so if you do buy one, make sure you inspect it upon arrival and return it for a full refund if anything at all is badly moulded, or missing. If this kit were less pricey or the manufacturer more helpful, I wouldn't be as harsh on it, but it is pricey - and they are unhelpful! Given that the High Planes kit can be trickier to get hold of and slightly higher in price, this is probably your second best option.

MPM 1/72 FAW.1 - this contains exactly the same plastic and resin as in the Xtrakit FAW.2 box. It is around £3 more expensive, however, for which you get 4 decal options instead of 2, and some extra resin bits - 4 pylons and a camera pod to use on the option for XJ476 (missile development aircraft that had different pylons and aforementioned pod). Unfortunately the pylons are the wrong shape still, and the pod is way too small. Thus you're paying for more bits of resin only fit for the bin. The early style FAW.1 canopy is not supplied in the kit so you'll need to add the extra frames to the supplied item (or to a vacform replacement), and XJ476 didn't have the rocket pack bulges so you need to get rid of those if choosing that option. Every comment on the FAW.2 release applies to this one too. The instructions wrongly tell you to paint the tailplane underside grey, it should be white with a grey leading edge.

For a long time the only option in this scale was the superb Dynavector vacform kit. This is pretty good value (available direct from Dynavector in Japan), well detailed but requires a certain amount of modelling skill to get the best out of it.

As of November 2008, Airfix have announced a forthcoming injection-moulded 1/48 kit that will cover both FAW.1 and FAW.2, a possible 2009 or 2010 release and if it's anything like the quality of their 1/48 Lightnings this will certainly be one to look out for!

MPM have also got an FAW.1 and FAW.2 kit in the pipeline but the Airfix kit is bound to be cheaper and judging by the quality of the MPM/Xtrakit 1/72 kit, it's likely the Airfix one will be superior quality too.

Just one option here - Panther Productions 2000 (now Panther Model Club) produced a limited run vacform/resin kit. It is now hard to find, popping up occasionally on eBay and other second-hand sales venues. Judging by photos of finished kits, it does have some shape issues (particularly around the intake splitter plates and canopies), and reports are that the optional resin cockpit is somewhat overscale and requires a great deal of work to fit it into the fuselage. Surface detail appears to be non-existent. However, as the only game in town in this scale there's little point in detailed criticism!

Beginnings of a build thread on the Large Scale Planes forum, here; pictures of a built-up example here.

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Paul Joel from Shropshire	Posted at 11:06pm on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
Wow great new informative modelling section. The Airfix release is great news. I fancy an electric EDF flier and there is one forthcoming from PN Designs, at some stage. There is a build sequence on rcgroups.com- just do a search on "sea vixen t... read more »