Cyber Hobby 1/72 de Havilland Sea Venom FAW.21
By Chris Banyai-Riepl
Overview
The Sea Venom was the final evolution of the de Havilland Vampire family. As one of the world's first jets, the de Havilland Vampire was a prime choice for the Fleet Air Arm to bring jet aircraft to their aircraft carriers. Building off the night fighter Venom NF.2, the Sea Venom added folding wings, a tailhook, strengthened landing gear, and a canopy modified to allow ejecting from underwater. The initial version, the FAW.20, was based on the NF.2 Venom, while the FAW.21 was based on the more advanced Venom NF.2A and NF.3. Operationally, the Sea Venom had a fairly long career. The prototype first flew in 1951, and while the aircraft was retired from the FAA in 1959, the Sea Venom continued on with the French until 1963 and the Australians until 1967.
The Kit
Cyber Hobby continues their attention on Fleet Air Arm aircraft, following up their Sea Vixen kit with its predecessor, the Sea Venom. The Vampire/Venom family has been relatively ignored in the modeling world, which is surprising given how important an airframe it was. This new kit, molded in the typical light gray plastic, features recessed panel lines, photoetched wing fences, and a nice decal sheet with a couple of options.
Delving deeper into the kit, we turn to the instructions. Most times, aircraft kits will have you start out with the cockpit. Interestingly, this kit has you affix the landing gear first. As many have come to discover, adding landing gear at an early stage of assembly is just asking for trouble, so it is very odd that this kit begins with that step. I would recommend assembling the landing gear but waiting until after the model is painted before attaching them. That said, the landing gear itself is quite well done, with the nose wheel carefully sandwiched between the main strut and a separate side piece. The main wheels are split into right and left halves, and have a separate insert to attach to the strut. The wheel wells are molded into the lower fuselage (nose wheel well) and upper fuselage (main wheel wells) and feature nice detailing.
For fuselage innards, this kit comes with quite a bit more than just a cockpit. While on the subject of the cockpit, though, this has separate sidewalls, a separate instrument panel, separate seats, and a separate control column. The seats look like they might be a bit on the small side, but they're not as bad as the Sea Vixen seats were. Still, it might be worthwhile tracking down some replacements. The detailing in here is pretty good, and once it's all painted black it should be fine for a closed canopy model.
The other fuselage interior bit is a complete Ghost engine. This is very well done, being made up from sixteen pieces, including the intakes and exhaust pipe. The top of the fuselage has a separate hatch to show off this engine, and this truly is one of the gems of this kit. While on the subject of the intakes, though, there is a rather glaring omission in the instructions. There are two vanes in each intake. These are actually provided in the kit, and looking at the instructions they are shown in place. However, there is no step in the instructions showing their placement, and no identification as to which piece goes on which side.
With the engine and cockpit in place, the fuselage can be put together. This is split into a top and bottom piece, incorporating the inner wing section. The radome is separate, and the instructions indicate that weight will be needed to keep this model on its landing gear. Luckily, that nose is quite large and there should be no problem in packing enough weight in there. The tailbooms are next, and these are molded as single pieces, right and left. The stabilizer between them features a separate elevator, and the rudders are separate as well.
Finally, we turn to the wings. These can be displayed folded or extended. There are two different styles of attachment blocks used depending on which method you choose, so you are guaranteed a sturdy attachment point. The actual fold area is nicely detailed and once that's painted and weathered, you'll have an accurate representation of that mechanism. There are also two drop tanks for under the wing, and notches in the outer wing sections provide the area to slide the photoetched wing fences into place.
The decal sheet provides both types of camouflage schemes worn by the Sea Venom. The earlier style featured Extra Dark Sea Grey over Sky, while the later was Extra Dark Sea Grey over White. The earlier scheme is on an aircraft from No 892 Squadron off the HMS Ark Royal during the Suez Crisis in 1956. It features the yellow and black Suez Crisis stripes around the wings and tail booms. The unit emblem is on the nose. The second option is from No 894 Squadron off the HMS Albion during the late 1950s. This is the boxtop scheme, featuring checkerboard tip tanks and a sharkmouth. In addition to the basic unit markings, the decal sheet provides extensive stenciling details.
Conclusion
Overall, this is another nice addition to the growing British aircraft in the Cyber Hobby line. While it's not perfect (the seats are a bit small, and the nose contours seem off), it will build up into a very nice representation of the Sea Venom. I hope Cyber Hobby expands on this family and produces the Venom night fighters as well. My thanks to Dragon Models USA for the review sample.