1/48 Airfix Buccaneer

by Warren Osborne

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This is my Airfix 1.48 scale Buccaneer S2D based on HMS ARK ROYAL during the late 70s.  I Built the kit about a year ago and being off with the flu at the moment and decided to fill the time while the paracetamol was working with an article for ARC.  I added some extra details to the kit this being the wheel wells and cockpit, little of which can be seen once I added pilots and fixed the plane to the base.  Other changes were the lowering of the flaps to a pre catapult launch position the inner flaps needed a little rebuilding to fit well.

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The kit is a not a brilliant fit mine also suffering from some minor warping which did not help, I spent a good week sanding and resanding.  One tip I do have is before you join the upper and lower fuselages sections together, fix the vertical tail to the upper fuselage half with two small self tapping screws from the inside, this gave a very strong joint it also helped reduce the gap between the two, make sure the tail is vertical before you commit to glue.  (I hope that made sense to you).  I had decided to pose my Buccaneer on a section of carrier deck from the start, I scoured the web for photos and found a few of Buccaneers about to be launched from Ark Royals bow catapult, this is what I have tried to represent.  The blast deflectors are scratch built and detailed using the pictures I found and are just a close guess mostly, the deck markings are fairly close to what I could see, I think they looked pretty good once they were added (I got close to ditching the whole idea) the base took nearly as long to build as the kit.  I used Humbrol paints throughout the build and weathered with pastels, the base was painted the same.

I sealed the buccaneer with one coat of Johnsons Klear,which gave it a suitable semi gloss sheen, which the real thing looks to have had.  This kit is a bit of a chore to build but it really looks the part when finished.

Cheers 

Warren Osborne

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Photos and text © by Warren Osborne