1/72 Airfix Avro Vulcan B Mk2

by Karl W Branson

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Here is my 1/72 scale Avro Vulcan B Mk2 by Airfix. The Vulcan is one of three aircraft types that made up the V force of bombers, the other two were the Handley-Page Victor and Vickers Valliant. The Vulcan was the back bone of the UK Nuclear deterrent force (armed with the Blue Steel Thermo Nuclear stand off missile) until this role went was taken over by the Royal Navy and its Polaris armed submarines.

The Vulcan started out as aircraft specification B35/46, and was developed as a 4 engine delta wing bomber. As this wing design was at that time a fairly new concept, it was decided to built 1/3 scale study aircraft, the Avro 707A (high speed), 707B (low speed) and 707C (twin seat trainer). This was done, and with the basic wing concept proven, the first Vulcan prototype was built in 1952, and the first production Vulcan B1’s went in to service in 1956. Vulcan's stayed in service until 1984 and looked like they would end there service life having never dropped bombs in anger. However, in 1982, the Falklands conflict broke out; Vulcan’s were pressed in to service to bomb port Stanley during the 'Black Buck' missions, they were flown much further that they had been designed to do and required multiple refuelling missions (done by Victor K2 Tanker) dropping 21 1,000lb bombs on Port Stanley's airport runway.

My Vulcan, XM607, is one of the aircraft that took part in these missions. Apart from the 1,000lb Bombs, they also carried 'Shrike' anti-radiation missiles to take out enemy radar installations. These were carried externally, using make shift pylons, and attached to the under wing hard points that that were left over from a time when the RAF was considering replacing the Blue Steel missile with American made ‘Sky Bolt’ missiles.

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This Kit was purchased at a local car boot sale (along with a number of other kits) and came with a white metal K2 tanker conversion set. This one was produced in the mid 1980's and comes complete with a Blue Steel missile; the parts were cleanly moulded in quite sturdy plastic, all parts having raised panel lines. The Decals were long past their best having looked like they had gotten damp during storage. I explained the situation to the Airfix parts replacement department and within a week I had a nice new set of decals for my model.

As usual, work started on the cockpit. Unfortunately the standard Vulcan kit does not have any cockpit detail to speak of - you can’t see most of it through the sealed canopy. On my Vulcan, I wanted to see what was inside, so I had to make a scratch built cockpit. The kit seats were not up to much, so I scratch built new ones using the kit seats as a base. I also made up new instrument panels and controls. As the crew access hatch is open I thought that I'd better make up some details for the access way, I built up some walls and flooring, installing that in to the bottom half of the fuselage. As the windows in the cockpit are very small (you can't see much of the interior detail through them) I had to cut open the canopy. Using a razor saw I detached the front windshield section from the detachable canopy section. The entire cockpit interior was painted prior to installation in the fuselage.

The rear of the aircraft was similarly devoid of details around the engine section, there being no jet pipes in the kit. I cut four lengths of brass tubing and installed them in to the engine apertures. So I could get a nice even finish to the engine nozzles, I cut the rear quarter’s of the upper fuselage so I could blend them in to the lower half and sandwich the brass rods in place.

The Vulcan kit comes with the option of having a closed bomb bay, or the insert to carry the Blue Steel missile. However, I had decided that I wanted to open up my bomb bay. I measured out the doors from the supplied one piece closed doors and cut them in to four sections. The next part was to build the bomb bay it’s self. I had a number of books for reference and the internet, but there’s nothing like getting some photos of the real thing. We were planning a trip to London anyway, so we made time for a visit to the RAF Hendon museum. The Vulcan that they have there is on display indoors with the bomb bay open, and you can actually get underneath and take pictures of the interior. I built the bomb bay firstly by cutting out both ends and the sides of the bay from plastic card. The ends are approximately the shape of the inside of the upper fuselage. The actual curved shape of the bomb bay upper was made from plastic strips, braced with a cross member.  Then the inside was detailed with the cross drilled bracing of the upper fuselage, and other sections of pipe work and fuselage stiffeners. The Vulcan model is a tail sitter, even more so with a detailed bomb bay and brass tubing jet pipes, so I installed about 45gramms of lead shot and milliput in to the nose to keep her straight and level.

The Airfix Vulcan comes with raised panel lines. As I’d decided to detail my Vulcan quite a bit, I thought I’d go all the way. This was my first attempt at a full re-scribing job, it took a bit of practice and I may have cut a little deep in some places. Using an OLFA re-scribing tool I went over the original panel lines with the Scriber, I did all of the large sections before assembly.

The next stage was to join the two halves of the fuselage together and both wing halves and the tail. This went together quite rapidly and along with the tail section the Vulcan grew in to that easily recognisable shape very quickly. There were a number of fit problems in the area of the wings, I used two part epoxy to attach the wings to the fuselage, bracing them whilst they set straight; and then gradual amounts of filler were applied to conceal the gaps. All of this filling had buried lots of the re-scribing detail that I had done on the wing roots, so this had to be re-scribed again. All other gaps were filled and sanded smooth and other details such as the pitot tubes and re-fuelling probe were added. The landing gear was made up and painted as a separate unit to be installed after painting the fuselage. The crew access ladder in the kit was also a bit basic, so I modified it, scratch building a new top half using plastic rod.

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Painting the Fuselage was to be the next step. After masking off the cockpit, bomb aimers window and crew entry door, the first step was a couple of coats of Halfords grey primer, this was applied and sanded smooth. As I had decided to build my Vulcan as XM607 of the Black Buck raids in 1982, the underside was airbrushed with Humbrol #164 Dark Sea Grey. The upper surface has the distinctive disruptive pattern camouflage, this was marked out in pencil and Humbrol #165 Medium Sea Grey applied first. When Dry I applied Humbrol #163 Dark Green to complete the pattern. The air intakes were brush painted with Matt White and when this was dry I completed the camouflage pattern on to the inside edge of the intakes. Then after some careful masking of the wheel wells and the bomb bay, they were air bushed with Matt White, details being picked out in grey and aluminium.

When the paint was fully dry it was time to apply the decals. I didn’t fancy spraying the whole aircraft with gloss varnish (to prevent decal silvering) so as I applied the decals I brushed a small layer of Future (Klear in the UK ) on to the area I was going to apply the decal. I slid the wet decal on to the future and dabbed it dry with a cotton but. This had the double effect of preventing bubbles (so no silvering) and to adhere the decals firmly in place when dry. I found it almost impossible to remove a Future applied decal with the cellotape & rip method, resorting to scrapping one off with the back of a knife. After all of the decals were applied I sprayed about three coats of Humbrol Matt Cote to seal everything in. the final touches were then applied; undercarriage, U/C doors and rams and a freshly painted canopy were installed, the removable section of the canopy was left off, it being a simple matter to sit the canopy in place when the model was on display. My Vulcan was now complete.

However, I was left with the Blue Steel missile that came with the kit, it looked quite nice and it was a shame to just leave it in the box. So I built up the missile and made a scratch built nozzle for the Senator rocket motor that powered Blue Steel to her target. I did a bit of research and found some pictures of the bomb trolley that carried the missile to the aircraft, so I scratch built one from plastic card, the wheels are donated toy car wheels that have been modified for the job. The missile and trolley were painted and detailed appropriately. The Blue Steel being white not blue was painted using Halfords Ford Diamond white and the trolley was painted in Humbrol #154 Insignia Yellow. As well as the Blue Steel missile, I thought I would include in my photos the Avro 707B model; this as you remember was the test bed for the Vulcan wing design.

I really enjoyed building my Vulcan, it was a bit of an adventure in more ways than one, requiring quite a bit of reading of internet and book resources and visits to a couple of museums that had Vulcan’s present. I’m very pleased with my Vulcan MX607 model. There were a few fit problems with the old Airfix kit, and plenty of filler was required and some details were a bit sparse, but I think it has turned out quite well.

Reference Material.

The Vulcan Story, by Tim Laming

Vulcan – Last of the V-Bombers, by Duncan Cubitt & Ken Ellis

Vulcan B Mk2, XL318 – RAF Hendon Museum

Vulcan B Mk2, XM594 - Newark Air Museum

Enjoy!

Karl

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Photos and text © by Karl W Branson