Nice two part box containing three bagged grey sprues, clear sprue with canopy on bomber aimer window, decal sheet and instructions. The kit models a B2 with Blue Steel missile and has the thimble radar. The a/c is fully engraved and contains some very finely moulded details. There are a couple of gotchas though.
The decal sheet is tiny but packed and well printed by Cartograph for an all white XL321 and camo'd XM595. The markings for XL321 have the BlueSteel painted pale blue, note this is a training round. Live missiles were white overall.
The fuselage and wing are mould in two halve, the upper half being the larger and the lower half forming an insert. Considering the thickness of some areas there is no sign of sink marks anywhere. Wingspan is about 17cm.
A very nice touch is the side moulded exhausts. There are dead straight though with no taper. A little sanding to thin the edges though should have these matching the real things nicely.
There is full engraving which at this scale is probably a little over the top. As long as you don't go filling these with dark washes it should look fine. The camber of the outer wing is nicely captured.
A bomb bay insert is provided to for the BlueSteel, but as I mentioned above there is no alternate part for teh standard bomb bay doors, however I believe there is a space for this and we may see another release.
The Blue Steel is well done itself with two separate lower fins that can be positioned down for inflight or folded for on the ground.
The third sprue contains all the detailed parts and a lot of wheels!! The fineness of the detail is very good, there being an excellent representation of the undercarriage despite the four wheels on the nose leg! Just shorten the axels and add the correct number. Two human looking pilots are supplied you can even see their O2 hoses, there are head rests on the seats and even tiny joysticks moulded to the dash. Other goodies include being able to position the crew hatch open with it's own ladder.
There are some weapon pylon parts not used which makes me think a Black Buck release may appear, as usual manufacturers need to get the most out of their moulds.
Two aerial platforms are supplied to go between each pair of engines, however as far as I know these were only fitted to under the starboard wing.
OK so how do though big parts go together? Well I couldn't wait either and snipped out the fuselage parts.
Well you are going to need some filler. The lower half is a tad to long and a smidge too wide, both being easily solved with a quick sanding. The rear and nose inserts though will need most attention. The bomb bay insert is quite loose too. If out fix this to the lower half first be aware it doesn't sit quite flush. The pylons though in the upper half will hold it at the correct level so I would add it after joining the main parts.
As you can see it's a bit tight out at the wing tips but easy to fix.
Well it's all good news so far..
The only problem that I can see ie it stands out like a sore thumb and I leave others to argue over details, is that they seem to thing the Vulcan is bannana shaped. There is a definite downward curve to to the nose, this is enforced by the curved mould line and may look better when this is removed. However the upper nose looks to flat and not bulbous enough. Poking the nose through a circle template shows it is in fact oval I got the impression it should be circular? Adding putty to the upper nose is probably to easiest method to correct this. After everything else being so good this is bit of a let down.
