Whirlykits 1/72 Avro 707B

The Avro 707 was a British experimental aircraft built to test the delta wing design for the Avro 698 jet bomber (later to become the Vulcan), and was effectively a one-third scaled-down version of that aircraft.

The prototypes were ordered by the Ministry to specification E.15/48. The aircraft were produced cheaply and quickly using components from other aircraft. Five prototypes were built in the end. Only the first three produced provided useful information for the Vulcan project, the last two flying too late to be of much relevance. 

The first prototype, the Avro 707, crashed on 30 September 1949. Consequently the second prototype was converted during building with the pointed nose planned for the 707A to become the 707B. The B got a top mounted engine intake. The B would eventually end up as spares for the others. The next one to fly was the 707A, a faithful copy of the Type 698's wingform including engine intakes, and intended for high speed testing. In 1956 it was transferred to Australia where it served until 1967 when sold off to a local resident. The next aircraft were ordered to E.10/49 in November 1951. These were to be a second 707A and two of a side by side cockpit version - the 707C.  These two flew in 1953 by which point the Vulcan prototype was already flying.

The Avro 707 made its final public appearance at the Farnborough Air Show; the four surviving examples of the aircraft flying alongside two Vulcan prototypes.

Two examples of the Avro 707C two-seat variant survive. One is located at the RAF Museum, Cosford near Wolverhampton, the other at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. A single example of the 707A variant survives, at the RAAF Museum in Point Cook, Victoria.

 Its is an all VAC formed kit and that says it all I think. You get three VAC formed sheet styrene which contain the fuselage halfs, the landing gear doors, 4 parts for the wings, the top intake and a basic tube for the cockpit. The canopy is VAC formed too. The landing gear, the pitot tube ( formed like a fork) and the ejector seat are given in white metal. 

The construction of a vac formed kit is always the same I think; lining the edges with some pencil; separating them and then sanding them down to the size they should have.

On this one I've scratched some detail for the wheel wells and I did a copy of the pit of the ProResin 707 A. This copy I did as an experiment in using only very cheap materials. For the molds I used bathroom silicone which worked pretty well – if it only would smell a little nicer and for doing the copies I used a water based ceramic – well a very fine kind of plaster I think. It all together came out not that bad – the copied parts were for sure better than scratched parts.

When trying to find the lines were to cut that intake piece I totally ruined that part, so I had to scratch that. The outcome of this is quite OK I think, at least for me.

The rest of the construction was pretty easy so there is not that much to tell about.

If only – yes the canopy. I was not able to get the given canopy to settle to what I cut out as cockpit. So I took a spare canopy from the ProResin 707 A. This canopy is made to attach to the fuselage hump of the 707 A so I had to form the humpback of the  707 B my self. This I made with wax which is pretty easy to shape.

The cockpit was painted mid gray. The ejector seat did get the eject handle in yellow black. This was it, because if you choose the canopy being closed, like me, you can’t see that much of the cockpit then.

It got a base of Createx White Base and onto this a mixture of a mid blue was spayed.  I could not find any advice which blue to use so I guessed it by comparing the gray values of the blue of the plane and the blue of the British insignia as seen on the old pics. As Reference I only had what you all can find in the internet.  

The landing gear bays were painted medium gray, as the instruction stated. Some minor washing was done too, but not that much, as this bird never get very dirty I guess.

The decals offered by the kit also went on without any complains, so again I can’t tell that much here.

In the end a coat of satin went on it – and finished.

I enjoyed this VAC kit, well actually I somehow like VAC kits, and I like the outcome. It fits well into my collection of triangles I have and in blue it sets a colorful dot among all those other silver ones.

It is not an easy VAC kit so I would not recommend it to anyone who did not do one before.  All the things which did not fit into place like the canopy and the intake, well that is probably my fault. But on the other side, If I did not have a resin kit of the 707 A to take pieces or copy pieces from, this kit would not have seen the shelf, that's for sure.

ProResin brought out a 707 B too, so go for that if you want one.

Internet (Google for Avro 707) and Wikipedia