Xtrakit and Xtradecals

Xtrakit 1/72 Sea Vixen FAW.2/D.3 Xtradecals 1/72 Sea Vixen FAW.1 and FAW.2

Kit Number: 72003, Decal Sheet # X72077

Reviewed by  Paul Bradley, IPMS# 35554

MSRP: Kit-£14.46 ($26 approx.) MSRP: Decal-MSRP: £5.95 ($10.50 approx.) Xtrakits and Xtradecals are available directly from Hannants in the UK ( www.hannants.co.uk ) Xtradecals are available in the US from Twobobs. (www.twobobs.net) Here's the first modern mainstream IM Sea Vixen, produced by the team of Hannants and MPM. Any of you who have built an MPM kit before will know what to expect when you open the box. This is a typical limited-run kit; surface detail is finely engraved and consistent, but raised detail such as the instruments is a little soft and ill-defined. Internal detail is very ordinary, with sparse and shallow detail on the plastic parts and no resin except for a pair of badly-undersized ejection seats. One wonders why the instrument panels were not moulded in resin - or will there be a full cockpit detail set from MPM's resin partners shortly? The fuselage is split horizontally with the stub wings moulded integrally. The nose cone is separate, which will aid with nose weight addition later. The outer wing panels are separate and split into top and bottom. Should you wish to pose the wings in the folded position, there are plugs for each wing section, but these are completely featureless, indicating perhaps that there will be a resin wing-fold set released later….. There is a set of intake trunks, also split horizontally, ending in a representation of the engine fan faces. These are supposed to be Avons, but there aren't nearly enough blades - not that they are all that visible once in place. Missing are the two vertical strakes inside each intake - these can be made with some plastic card. At the back end, the exhausts feature resin inserts and look quite nice. The nose gear is a nicely detailed one-piece resin part, but the main gear is all plastic and has much less detail, which is pretty soft. There's not much in the way of gear bay detail, but then the U/C doors were closed except for cycling anyway so it isn't a problem. There is a full set of wing pylons, but aside from a pair of small drop tanks, there's nothing to put on them. The Sea Vixen could carry Red Top AAMs or Bullpup AGMs, rocket pods, dumb bombs or a buddy refueling pack, but none of these are provided which is a shame. Many will have something in their spares box, but at least a pair of missiles would have been nice. Perhaps this indicates that a resin weapons set will be released in the near future…? The clear parts are very nice and include both the FAW.1 and 2 windscreens - indeed the parts are there to make an FAW.1 from the box if you desire. This includes both types of observer's hatch, both the early one and later frangible unit used on later FAW.2s. A set of Tamiya tape masks is provided for these, and for the curved camouflage demarcation lines, but no instructions are provided for their location or use. Decals are included for XP924, the only Sea Vixen currently flying, at three stages of her life; firstly, when she was a frontline aircraft with 899 Squadron, FAA, then when she operated as a drone aircraft in a striking Golden Yellow (not Deep Cream…) and Signal Red scheme, and decals are also included for her civilian registration G-CVIX so you can depict her on the airshow circuit as well. The decals are printed by Aviprint. To construction! This is a limited run kit and you will need to have built a few of these before if you are to get the best out of this kit. Even given that I've built many Classic Airframes kits before (same manufacturer - MPM), it is tough going in places. All the parts need careful sanding and dry-fitting to ensure the best fit. The cockpit is rather sparsely detailed and this area is not helped by the resin ejection seats that are about 1/100 scale! I mounted the pilot's seat on a small block of resin to raise the headrest about the canopy frames. I left out the observer's seat - as I was going to paint over the frangible hatch as per real life, it seemed pointless detailing this area; indeed, I used the space to add extra nose weight. MPM would have you glue the fuselage together first, then the outer wing sections and join those to the completed fuselage. MPM provide blanks to go into the ends of the wing sections to act as spacers and to provide a gluing surface, but these were much too large for the openings and did not fit at all well. Rather than mess about with them, I opted to glue the upper wings to the upper fuselage, and the lowers to the lower fuselage. I strengthened the joins with 20 thou plastic card, and made short spar sections to run across the joins and hold the upper and lower wings apart at the correct distance. It worked quite well. The defining feature of the Sea Vixen FAW.2 are the large over-wing fuel tanks and these are provided as separate pieces by MPM and are intended to sit over the existing smaller FAW.1 tail boom extensions. I glued each set together and once set, tried to dry-fit these in place. Although the undersides are chamfered, these did not fit at all well. Forcing them into place splayed out the lower sides, giving an unnaturally bulged appearance to the tanks. As the tank plastic is quite thin, further thinning was not going to be an option, so I cast around for alternative ways to get these tanks to fit properly. My rather drastic solution was to remove the FAW.1 extensions altogether. This left me with a nice smooth surface and non-bulging tanks, but little gluing surface, so I added lengths of plastic drinking straw inside the booms - this also aids alignment. Some filler was needed on just about every join, but that seems to be par for the course with these limited-run kits. The booms need careful alignment in three dimensions and a jig would help here - I used some card and lots of poster putty! The horizontal tail is one slab piece, and fits pretty well after judicious sanding. The main undercarriage is OK, but typical of MPM kits, these smaller parts are not particularly well detailed. For some reason, the nose u/c is cast in resin - its very nice, but a single piece that needs careful clean-up. Location of all the u/c legs is a bit vague and I used a pin vise to drill some deeper locating holes. With the main airframe compete, it time to finish the model. I painted mine in the elegant FAA Extra Dark Sea Grey over White scheme using Xtracrylix. Xtrakits provides a set of Tamiya tape masks for the demarcation lines, but these are not labeled and are ignored in the instructions, so you are on your own here. As mentioned earlier, decals are included for XP924, the last flying Sea Vixen, at three stages of her life. The decals are beautifully printed by Aviprint and include a comprehensive set of stenciling and national markings, as well as the individual markings for '924. But naturally, I wanted something different! I was kindly sent Xtradecals' Sea Vixen set, and this is a wonderful piece of the decalmaker's art. Xtradecals claim that this set will provide markings for any FAA Sea Vixen and I don't doubt it! Squadron insignia are included for every unit that operated the Sea Vixen, along with a comprehensive set of national markings, serials and other markings. The printing is superb and the instructions include diagrams for 19 different aircraft, both FAW.1 and 2. I chose an aircraft of 899 NAS, HMS Eagle. I used a mix of kit (mainly stenciling) and aftermarket sheets and both were easy to use and bedded down splendidly. Colour density is very good, the decals are in register and they did not silver in the slightest - in short, I couldn't find a thing wrong with them. I can highly recommend these decals.

I had three sets of plans and two books to examine this kit against and the model appears to match pretty well. Of course, without access to a real Sea Vixen, I cannot be sure which set of plans is most accurate, so I reserve judgment on exact measurements, but there are a few areas of concern. The sweep of the tails looks a little upright, but that is easily rectified with a light sanding. Certainly, the nose profile looks off, as there is supposed to be a break in curvature about 2/3rds of the way back along the nose cone - 10 minutes sanding helped give the impression of this. The canopy should be a little more bulged; Falcon has a vacform one that can replace this. Otherwise, the model sits well on its u/c and the overall feel of the model seems very good. This is a limited run kit with all that entails. Not an easy build by any means and let down by the fit of the over-wing tanks; I am also troubled by the inexcusably poor ejection seats, and by the paucity of internal detail. Despite the difficulties I encountered with the build, I am fairly happy with my end results; those with more skill will no doubt be able to create a little masterpiece from this kit. Fairly, this is not a kit for the faint-hearted modeller, and many will turn to the Frog/Revell kit as being easier to build and less expensive. However, that kit is badly inaccurate and if you want an accurate Sea Vixen to grace your collection, this is the way to go. My sincere thanks to David Hannant for the review samples. Xtrakits and Xtradecals are available directly from Hannants in the UK and from good hobby retailers in the US; Xtradecals are available in the US from Twobobs.

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