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Airfix 1/48 Sea Vixen

By Mike Whye

A lot of people have been waiting anxiously for the appearance of Airfix’s 1/48 Sea Vixen ever since it was announced that it was on its way.   I first saw a real Sea Vixen….well, it was my one and only time….when I visited the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, England, which is quite a place.   I thought I knew a lot of aircraft but realized some obviously had escaped me when I saw the Sea Vixen parked on a ramp in 1982.   All I could think of was, wow, what an airplane!

A bit of history

The British aircraft manufacturing firm de Havilland designed the prototype of the Sea Vixen in response to a request for a fleet defense fighter from the British Navy and first flew that prototype in 1951.   Following various modifications to the aircraft, the first real Sea Vixen flew in March 1957 and it began to arrive in squadrons in 1959.

Originally the design called for the Sea Vixen to be armed with 4 20mm cannon but those were scrapped and the plane became an all-missile fighter.   Similarly, a supersonic version of the Sea Vixen was planned with a speed above Mach 1.4 but that too was scrapped.

The Sea Vixen could carry Firestreak and Red Top anti-aircraft missiles, MATRA rocket packs and Bullpup air-to-ground missiles.   It carried a pilot who had a traditional fighter-style canopy over his cockpit which was offset to the left of the fuselage and a radar-observer whose position was to the right of the pilot and set down in the fuselage.

Sea Vixens never saw combat but aircraft carriers armed with them did a show of force around the world including in the Persian Gulf when Iraq threatened to invade Kuwait in 1961. In 1964, Sea Vixens provided air cover for marines in Tanganyika but again, saw no combat, and in 1967 they covered British units leaving Aden.

Two Sea Vixen display teams were formed (one is represented by decals in the Airfix kit) but they flew only a few dozen times. In 1972, the Sea Vixens left military service.   Several are displayed at various museums, mostly in the United Kingdom, and only one remains in flying condition. With markings of No. 899 Squadron, (another of the variants in the Airfix kit), it’s operated by de Havilland.

The Sea Vixen had a range of 790 miles on internal fuel, a service ceiling of 48,000 feet and a maximum speed of 690 mph, or Mach .91 at sea level although the plane reportedly exceeded the speed of sound in a dive.   It was powered by two Rolls-Royce Avon Mk. 208 turbojets.

What’s in the Box

Upon opening the kit, you’ll see three large sprues of neutral gray styrene plastic in one large sealed bag and a small sprue that’s bagged separately and holding the few, well-made, thin, clear pieces.

The large sprues are thick, like one is accustomed to seeing in Airfix kits this size. Connection points are good but care must be taken in clipping away the parts, especially the many thin, fine ones.

I noticed that one of the two very tiny Part 75C‘s--the ejection handle/trigger atop an ejection seat--was broken cleanly but see no problem in re-aligning the pieces and gluing them together. I feel this can happen with any kit and don’t fault Airfix. Panel lines are thin and nicely engraved.

I saw no sinkholes although some ejector marks might be seen once the model is completed unless fixed. At first I saw eight ejector marks on Part 5B, the top of the speed brake bay, which concerned me and, although six will be covered by other parts, two will still be seen unless remedied with some putty or small punched-out disks; admittedly, they would be tough to see. Of course, if the air brake is closed, there’s nothing to worry about.
Similarly, the nose gear bay has a couple ejector marks but they shouldn’t be seen when the strut is installed and the wheel well door is assembled shut--the door was closed when the plane was on the ground.
Other ejector marks are on the cockpit floors but the only ones that might be seen are on the forward floor of the observer’s position and that’s if his hatch is open and with a strong penlight shining in there.
Some more are on the rear cabin bulkhead but sanding should eliminate those fairly easily and another is on the pilot‘s side of Part 71C, a bulkhead between the crewmen.
A few are noticeable on the wing fold panels which might cause some concern if the outer wings are displayed upright.

The kit has lots of nice details. The 13-piece cockpit detail is pretty good and each ejection seat has six pieces (be careful to not mix up the radar observer’s seat with the pilot’s because they are different). The flap wells also have good detail and the landing gear struts are nice.   The tires are flattened, something I appreciate.

The inner areas of the intakes are a two-part affair which produces those inner jet intake seams that bedevil modelers.   I suppose someone might come out with an aftermarket resin intake piece that’s seamless.

Do read the instructions carefully.   In Step 38, you’re to install support boxes that will be sealed between the upper and lower parts of the inner wings. They’re to lend support when you attach the outer wings if they’re to be display extended as if for flight.   Do not install those support boxes if you want to show the wings in their upright positions. Beside the option of how to display the wings, you can show the air brake closed or open in two positions and you can display the tail hook up and in two down positions. All control surfaces are molded separately and can be positioned as you like. Similarly, you can have the flaps up or down as you can do with the landing gear and the canopies can be displayed open or shut too.
The kit has two identical crew members, drop tanks and some ordnance--Red Top Missiles and MATRA rocket pods.

Instructions show the in-flight version of the model sitting on a stand which I thought might be in the kit, like in-flight stands in kits past but nope. If you want the in-flight stand, you have to purchase it separately. One way you can do that is by visiting www.airfix.com although the instructions don’t call out a part number.   After searching the website for a few minutes, I found what looks like the stand, Part AF1007 which is described as a stand for 1/24 scale aircraft.   But in comparing it to the other Airfix stands, I’d say if you want an in-flight stand for the Sea Vixen, you’ll want AF1007.   I cannot find any U.S. hobby store carrying it yet although those in the U.K. list it at £4.99, or about U.S. $7.85.

From what I see in the 84-step instructions, which are pretty clear, building this kit should be pretty easy.   As for how things fit, I don’t know yet.   In dry-fitting some large pieces, it looks like a well-designed and well-made kit.

Because the model is tail heavy, you’ll need 36 grams, or 1.2 ounces, of something in the nose for the model to sit properly.

Painting and Decals

For painting, you may need just three paints: white, black and extra dark sea gray.   Truthfully though, you’ll want a few more colors for details but for those, you’ll need to refer to a Humbrol color chart because the colors are not described anywhere in this kit. I wish Airfix would list the paints in the instructions.   As it is…..go to Humbrol’s website to see a list of paints spelled out for the four versions presented in this kit.

In looking at photos of real Sea Vixens, I noted a couple places where the colors called out by Airfix are different from what’s seen in some photos.   For example, you can find photos of yellow and black stripes on the ejection seats’ handles/triggers and some that are dirty white and black.   Also, Airfix notes the seat cushions are Humbrol 102, army green, yet one can see they are also red, yellow, gray and light to medium tan in photos. Similarly, photos show some Sea Vixens had steel-gray wing fold panels while others had their original surfaces haphazardly painted over with something of a yellow zinc chromate. Do note that while Airfix doesn’t mention this, photos of real Sea Vixens show that some had very thin white frames around the clear portions of the overhead canopies.

As noted a moment ago, the kit’s decals represent Sea Vixens in three squadrons during different times of the airplane’s career plus G-CVIX, the last Sea Vixen flying. Since operational Sea Vixens were painted alike--dark extra dark sea gray topsides and white on the bottom--there’s little variation between them excepting squadron markings and aircraft numbers. Be aware, however, of a difference on the upper surfaces of the inner flaps; those were all extra dark sea gray on the operational Sea Vixens but the variant representing the one still being flown by de Havilland has white and dark sea gray surfaces. One of the variants shows a pair of red and yellow sunflowers on the underside of its horizontal stabilizer. From what I understand by reading about them on a modeling forum, they were someone’s way of flipping off authorities who were, in the eyes of several aircrew, removing a perfectly good aircraft from service. That same airframe had a shark mouth and eyes at the nose too.
The quality of the decal sheet, made by Cartograf, is high. Everything looks spot-on and whoever builds this kit is going to be busy for a long time putting on the stencils common to all four variants in this kit and which require three pages in the instruction booklet to show their placement.

References

For some good reference photos, visit:

A personal note about this third website: I couldn’t help but notice some stencils on the real aircraft show silvering…..so much for my knocking myself out to avoid that on decals I apply on models!

A 120-page book by Roy Sutherland, “de Havilland Sea Vixen FAW.1/FAW.2,” is chockfull of Sea Vixen photos. It retails for $26.95 and is a great resource.

Conclusions

This is a good kit and aside from some ejector marks that need sanding, I think you’ll like it and Airfix’s Sea Vixen should be a fine-looking model in your collection. When finished, it measures about 12-½ inches across, with the wings open, and 13 inches from front to back.

MSRP is U.S. $66.95.