Amodel 1/72 DH 100 Vampire Mk.6

The de Havilland DH.100 Vampire was a British jet-engine fighter. It was commissioned by the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, and was the second jet fighter to enter service with the RAF, after the pioneering Gloster Meteor. Although it arrived too late to see combat during the war, it served with front line RAF squadrons until 1955, and continued in use as a trainer until 1966. It also served with many air forces worldwide, and set several aviation firsts and records.

Almost 3,300 Vampires were built, a quarter of them under licence in other countries. The Vampire design was also developed into the de Havilland Venom fighter-bomber as well as naval Sea Vampire variants.

THE KIT

This one may be a reboxing as all the sprues are marked 'Master', a company of which I've never heard. The molding on the parts is very good with nicely done engraved panel lines. Aside from a few sink areas on thicker parts, there are no molding glitches to speak of.

The cockpit is quite complete with seat and stick to go in the tub. The seat actually has a separate cushion section with belts molded in place. A couple of side consoles and an instrument panel complete things. Wings are nicely molded with a separate intake backing piece. No inlet grilles are provided so you'll need to build those from scrap plastic. Even the instructions do not show them. One will also have to clip the wing tips to install the shorter ones provided in the kit. The wings butt fit on the fuselage with small inserts along the intake section. It reminds me quite a bit of the way Classic Airframes did their 1/48 Vampire kits. A separate air brake is provided. There is detail under the flaps, but one will have to cut away the kit ones to see this. Nice to have that there if one wants to do this additional work.

As this is the Swiss version, the extended nose is provided on a separate sprue. Those wishing to do a standard Vampire FB.5 can use the more rounded nose as that is also on the sprues. This one will be a major tail sitter. The instructions show a brace for the rear fuselage, though it may be possible to fit enough weight into the nose and behind the cockpit to allow it to sit without the brace. I should mention that the very large and ugly fuel tanks shown on the box photo are not included in the kit (thank goodness).

Instructions are quite well done with color information provided by Humbrol and generic references. This includes the painting of interior pieces. The lone marking option is for the plane shown on the photograph on the box. This is basically aluminum lacquer with orange boom bands. The orange brakes will need to be painted as well. Decals are nicely printed, but like most Ukraine based decals, will probably need some help to snuggle into the various panel lines. They are quite matte and include a full stencil suite.

CONCLUSIONS

A very nice 1/72 Vampire and aside from the CMR resin kits and the much older Frog and Heller offerings, is pretty much it in this scale. It should proved to be nicely detailed model and look great on your shelves.

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