On announcement I immediate ordered mine from HLJ without checking if the value would incur the wrath of import duty...an extra £12 the poorer I now have it and not going to worry about trivial things like money. There have been stepping stones to get here, Welsh Models ye olde vacform and later resin update, Wolfpack's very nice resin kit as built by our own BLJ, a slight detour for Cyber Hobby's 'good but could do better' 1/200 kit. The latter is a nice size if you don't have much room as even in 1/144 scale the Vulcan takes a reasonable amount of shelf.
The box is double decker, with the lower fuselage and sprue sitting on a raised shelf. The lower part contains the rest of the parts. The upper fuselage getting the full kid gloves treatment. Despite this the very tip of one wing was bent, easy to fix.
The main parts didn't stay long in the packaging. I'm guessing (like the TSR 2?) the kit will also be available prebuilt. To this end there a host of snap fit tight location pin in the fuselage and wings. Some are a bit too tight and you will get the parts closed without clamping if you loosen them up. You then get an immaculate join. It seems to disappear as you squeeze the parts together, amazing engineering at least on a par with their superb TSR 2 kit.
Separate bomb bay insert suggest a Blue Steel option could be available later.
The panel lines are excellent as good as you would want on a plastic model - I've seen finer in resin but they can too easily disappear. Finer that the CH effort which looked a bit overdone.
Fear not the intakes, they have been slide mould in one piece!
The jet pipes are also slide moulded too though I can't quite work out why.
I've not checked the shape with plans or picture but the shape of the nose looks a lot better than CH's. The only thing it is missing is a boarding ladder which was a nice touch in CH's kit.
The kits options are limited as the model represents the Vulcan on is heroic Black Buck raids, two options only differing in the serials for XM607 and XM507. A couple of nice Shrikes and jammer pod are included and the later tail with the radar warning receivers.
I would have liked to see the option for a more usual service machine and this may be the subject of a later release. I'll just mod mine to something that takes my fancy.
Another triumph from Pitroad who have probably stolen my kit of the year nod again. It would be nice to think that they will do a Victor and Valiant but I'm not going to hold my breath. The Vulcan stands out as an iconic aircraft much more than either of the other V bombers (personally I prefer the Victor
) and is the more logical choice for kitting.There are also more pictures here http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10195496; showing the instructions etc.
) Is the only way to get it to import it atm??
