Mach2 Vickers VC10 K2 1/72

[H-bomb]

The box. The lid is very flimsy cardboard, thought the box the plastic sits in is sturdy enough.

The transparencies?? I will probably just use Hu clearfix for the fuselage windows.

You get three sprues of of soft cheese like white plastic. They are reasonably flash free and clean compared to mach2's other kits in my stash. The fuselage measures about 22inches long.





The comprehensive and highly detailed destructions on double A4 size paper.

The flipside of destructions

The decals, the white ones are screen printed, the lower are laser printed. Why'd they do that?

Temporary accommodation for the few pieces that came off in transit.

Ta for looking
Cheers Howard

[Gregers]

Ho WOW. Now I seriously need one. Damn. Looks like I will be saving up my sheckles and putting an order In to Hannants.
Many thanks Howard for the in box review.

All the best

Greg

[iggie]

That does actually look a lot better than some reviews would have you believe...
It also reminds me that I have a Roden VC10 around someplace

[JamesPerrin]

From what I saw of the built up models at SMW the nose and cockpit glazing is way off I fortunately. I have seen it corrected by altering the kit parts, Phil Flory did one last year.

[Chuck E]

Looks better than some of their other kits. Some neat markings on the wind parts.

[TeeELL]

The first aircraft I ‘tanked off’ was a VC10, very challenging - due to the met conditions, not the aircraft. The tanking instructor in another F4 couldn’t ‘prod’, not an auspicious start! As the ‘newby’, in my F4, I got in first go!!!

All of that is totally irrelevant Howhaemorrhoidshang, thank you for your review.

[Tarkas]

The decals: the white ones are screen printed, the lower are laser printed. Why'd they do that?

For economic reasons? Screen printing is, I think, more expensive than laser printing, so they only printed the stuff that had to be screen printed (i.e., the white bits) and laser printed the rest. Possibly a false economy since, if I understand how it's all supposed to go together, much of the white is intended as backing for the coloured markings, presumably in order to make them opaque when placed on top of the camo paint scheme.

Still, looks like an interesting kit, albeit a typical Mach 2 model requiring a fair bit of work to build.

[RayS]

The decals: the white ones are screen printed, the lower are laser printed. Why'd they do that?

For economic reasons? Screen printing is, I think, more expensive than laser printing, so they only printed the stuff that had to be screen printed (i.e., the white bits) and laser printed the rest. Possibly a false economy since, if I understand how it's all supposed to go together, much of the white is intended as backing for the coloured markings, presumably in order to make them opaque when placed on top of the camo paint scheme.

Still, looks like an interesting kit, albeit a typical Mach 2 model requiring a fair bit of work to build.

You are correct, screen printing is expensive compared to laser printing, each layer has a cost just to set up the colours, e.g. in Aus $250 per colour layer, and then there is the actual cost to print 'X' number of sheets. So printing a sheet of whites to go under the laser printed colours is a more economical option.

To bring this back on subject.... Thanks for the review, I was keen to get my hands on one of these but after seeing the cockpit shape issues no so much now. Air Graphics were (are?) was doing some updates sets:

Air-Graphics announce new sets for 1/72 scale VC-10 detailing. Due early 2020
Air-Graphics

The detail sets for the VC-10 in RAF service includes:
AC-244 - Vickers VC-10 Wheel Set
AC-245 - Vickers VC-10 Undercarriage Set
AC-246 - Vickers VC-10 905E Wing Pod Refuelling Units
AC-247 - Vickers VC-10 Engine Set
AC-248 - Vickers VC-10 cockpit Set
AC-249 - Vickers VC-10 Open Door Set

Well early 2020 is well and truly gone and have not heard any more on these.

[Eric Mc]

Sadly, the nose is massively wrong and the kit needs a great amount of surgery in that area to correct it.