1/48 Airfix Seafire FR46 and

1/48 Hobbycraft Sea Fury

In the (Wavy) Navy

by Graham Tarran

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The Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) was founded in 1903 with an air branch being formed in 1938.  By the end of the war, 94% of the total aircrew complement of the FAA was made up of RNVR members. 

In 1947 it was decided that RNVR members should make up anti-submarine & fighter units only.  However, sweeping defence cuts brought on by the 1957 Defence White Paper, the increasing complexity of modern surface & air systems (in particular, the move to rotary winged aircraft for the ASW role, for which training was thought to be more demanding & not suitable for reservists) spelt an end to the RNVR Air Branch in 1958.  By 1980, the RNVR itself was disbanded & formed the beginnings of the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR).  Initially, aircrew who had left the FAA for aviation related civilian posts were still manning one or two units but within a couple of years, they were absorbed into front-line units. 

Why “Wavy Navy”?  Well RNVR personnel could be identified by the “zigzag” rank rings on their cuffs rather than the straight rings of the RN proper. 

Here are a couple of representatives from the post war “Golden Age” of RNVR aviation. 

The Seafire is the 1/48 Airfix FR46.  The penultimate mark of the Seafire line.  Only 24 were ever built & all served with RNVR units based in the UK.  The fixed wings of this variant made it unsuitable for carrier based operations although I presume that it was landed on & launched from carriers by it’s “part time” pilots.  The Seafire 47 did feature foldable wings & saw action in Korea but the Sea Fury eventually replaced the Seafire in this conflict carrying as it did more “bangs for bucks”.

 

I love this kit (& it’s land based cousin the Spitfire 22/24) & snap them up whenever possible from Ebay where they appear fairly frequently (the Seafire is still in production but the Spitfire is OOP).  It was built basically straight from the box with a few exceptions: 

  1. Ultracast seat
  2. Brass tube for the exposed ends of the cannon barrels
  3. “Crystal Clear” used for the camera ports in lieu of the kit parts.
  4. Exhausts drilled out.

The cockpit is a let down with some pretty “clunky” detailing moulded on the fuselage insides but the addition of the seat is a big help.  I managed to loose the cockpit door but fabricated another from card & stretched sprue.  Decals are from the kit & represent a machine of 1832 NAS RNVR, based at Culham in 1947.  Main markings aren’t too bad but the silvering of the stencilling & walkway decals are a problem that I was not able to totally eradicate!

Click on images below to see larger images

The Sea Fury is the Hobbycraft offering.  If you can get past the panel lines that appear to have been dug by a JCB, this is not a bad kit.  Cockpit detail is very poor but there’s not a lot to see through the narrow opening, particularly if you leave the canopy shut.  Undercarriage is another poor area & the prop spinner & blades are not accurate.  To get over these problems, I invested in the Cutting Edge “Sea Fury interior” & “exterior detail” sets. The interior set provides a finely detailed cockpit with an all-important seat which alone is a great improvement.  I painted the instrument panel, sidewalls & consoles satin black with details in various colours as I saw fit.

The exterior set provides a new wheel bay, undercarriage legs & wheels, tail wheel, prop blades, spinner, drop tanks & louvers; all in resin except the undercarriage & tail wheel (white metal).  This fitted well with only a small amount of sanding to fit the wheel bay into the kit wings.  The problem I encountered surrounded the main u/c leg actuating arms the position of which are not clearly indicated & thanks to another ARC’er who provided me with a good shot of this area on a preserved Canadian example.  From this I deduced that Cutting Edge had provided each actuating hydraulic cylinder “twice”; once on the white metal part itself & again, moulded in resin on the forward wall of the wheel bay.  Once I had removed the offending part from the white metal component, it fitted well! 

The undercarriage doors are extremely over thick.  I fabricated new inner doors from plasticard but left the main gear doors as they were as I felt unable to reproduce the detail on the inner faces! 

Canopy is by Squadron.  Decals are Eagle Strike & define a machine from 1831 NAS RNVR from Stretton in 1949.  The red & yellow bands were applied for “Operation Mariner”.  I did a google on this & found very little, only references to some US Navy Units & that it took place in the N Atlantic.  The instructions do not show these bands above the wings but I used a little licence & applied them here too as it seemed logical.  

Both models were painted using Xtracolour enamels, followed by an application of Humbrol satin varnish after completion.  Detail painting again with Humbrols

I constructed these models sequentially & greatly enjoyed them.  In particular, I liked the way the detail sets added to the rather basic Sea Fury.  I’ll build another when I can again afford the necessary detail sets.  I intend to work through my Airfix FR46/47 stock over the years but the re-release of the Aeromaster decal sheets would be a great advantage.  Markings for these aircraft are limited by the relatively small numbers of the real things produced but the kit decals are not entirely perfect. 

It has recently been announced that Grand Phoenix are to release the Airfix Seafire 46/47 & Spitfire 22/24 under their own label with additional resin details including the cockpit & Griffon engine.  

(References for History of the RNVR from  Encyclopaedia of the Fleet Air Arm Since 1945” by Paul Beaver).

Graham

Click on images below to see larger images

Photos and text © by Graham Tarran