The New Airfix Blenheim MKlF

THE NEW AIRFIX BLENHEIM MKIF

Airfix have just released a 1/48 scale Blenheim MkIf to the delight of the modelling world. Blenheim author and modeller Alan Price got his hands on a pre-production model to see how good it really is.

When the editor and I were working on the Blenheim book, we were conscious of the new Airfix kit of the aircraft being release in the same year, possibly around the same time as the book. This would be an important release for Airfix, one of their big new kit releases this year, and for modellers too as prior to this the there had only been one other large scale Blenheim, a short run release by Classic Airframes. While this kit is not bad, being a short run kit it requires a certain level of modelling skill to build and get the most out of it. I built one of these kits back in 2015 and it’s not bad at all, if rather a lot of work!

Many readers of this article have probably built Airfix kits in their youth – or maybe are still building them today, like me. The name Airfix is synonymous with plastic model kits but the Airfix of today is not the same as it was in the past. Whilst the company has always produced good kits, today the company is one of the leading lights in the modelling world, producing high technology, accurate and detailed kits which are a pleasure to build. I’ve been building prototype kits from Airfix as a model reviewer for several years now so I’ve seen how they have come on and I was really looking forward to this Blenheim. Looking at the 3-D renderings on their website it looked to be highly detailed and also very accurate in shape. I can tell you now that it did not disappoint. I was fortunate enough to be able to get a pre-production kit from Airfix (and a big ‘thanks’ must go out to Martin Ridge at Airfix for this) which had production standard parts, decals and instructions. This means that what you see here will be the same as the kit that can be bought in the shops.

The Blenheim is a fairly large aircraft, being some 42 feet long and 56 feet in wingspan, which means in 1:48 scale it’s almost a foot long and over a foot across the wings making quite large as a model. As a kit, this results in 6 runners of plastic parts plus one clear runner containing all the transparencies. While this initial release is for the Mk.1F, the kit appears to contain all the parts required to make a Mk.1 including the standard cockpit windows (no armour glass), open bomb bay option and a full load of bombs. Light Stores Carriers and suitable bombs are also included. In terms of colour schemes we get decals for two of the aircraft featured in the book profiles, YX-N, K7159 the night fighter and day fighter YP-Q. Airfix’s marking guide is fairly accurate but note that the serials are wrongly placed on the starboard side of K7159 and YP-Q is shown with an all black underside.

Due to the complexity of these kits it’s a good idea to follow the instructions carefully as it’s quite possible to ‘build yourself into a corner’ and find you cant fit something as it needed to be done at an earlier stage, so my assembly sequence followed the kit instructions for the most part.

The complexity of the interior can be seen here. The pilot’s seat and controls fit to the bomb bay and spars which form the centre section of the model. Here is the completed cockpit interior after painting. Photo etch seat belts from Eduard add a touch more detail.

Construction of the kit begins with the fuselage interior, in this case the bomb bay

serves as a base onto which the cockpit is built. After assembling all the parts required, they all had to be painted. I won’t go into the many stages of painting required but over the cockpit green base layer I applied several layers of effects to help bring out the detail and make the parts look more threedimensional. Once all the parts had been painted, they we re assembled into one side of the fuselage. The radio equipment was also painted and detailed then glued into place. The fuselage was then closed up.

The next job was to clean up the seams where the fuselage had been glued together. Filler goes over the seams which are then sanded back – this ensures the filler is sanded away rather than the plastic, which would of course affect the shape of the model. After attaching the front upper section of the