1/48 Airfix EE Lighting

by Sebastien Privat

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Introduction

     World War II saw Britain produce some of the most beautiful flying machines ever.  This was piston engine time, though. Strangely enough, when turbines came into fashion, British sense of aesthetics which gave us such wonders as the Spitfire Mk IX (tall tail) or the E-type Jaguar got sometimes superseded by the renowned sense of humor that gave the world the Monty Pythons or the Fairey Gannet.  British industry did produce beautiful jets - just think of the Hunter, or the Vulcan - but then enjoyed a period of exotic and noisy designs, which sadly enough turned into a dull, multi-national, lukewarm and just as noisy design trend. 

     The Lightning is the best illustration of this exotic period : its configuration is unique - 60 degree swept back wings, engines mounted one on top of the other, overwing tanks -, its front end reminds of a soviet concept while its belly, specially in the last versions, makes you think of a fish ready to lay its eggs.   But its performance was sparkling: tough to beat in a dogfight, it could, even if not so slightly modified, out climb an F-15 and gave deafened audiences tremendous routines at air shows.  As a matter of fact, I just love this airplane, and I am as happy as can be Airfix released it in my favorite scale.

The Airplane

     Towards the end of the Second World War, British Ministry of Aircraft Production issued an ambitious specification.  It was for a research aircraft capable of attaining 1,000 mph at 36,000 feet, which never took off from the drawing board.  It nevertheless opened the door for new research aircraft specifications, one of them being for a Mach 1.5 capable aircraft. English Electric won a contract for such an aircraft, and designed a plane which was similar to the eventual Lightning: incredibly swept-back wings, low set tail plane and twin engines, set one above the other. 

     This aircraft, the P.1, flew for the first time on 4 August 1954.  Twenty three P.1B followed, which were the development aircraft, then two P.1A were built, which had a reduced sweep on the outboard wings and a slight camber on the leading edge.  Unfortunately, on the day of the maiden flight of the first P.1B, the splendidly uninspired White Paper entitled "Defense - An Outline of Future Policy" was published.  This document stated that manned aircraft were soon to be replaced by missiles and that the P.1 would not have any successor.  As it was said by the author of the paper about the P.1, "Unfortunately, it has gone too far to cancel".  More unfortunately, this led the then christened Lightning - Excalibur had been rejected - to remain seen as a stop gap aircraft, just here for the pilots to fool around with, while they waited for an early retirement under a sky protected by those almighty missiles. 

     The Lightning F1 entered service under such benevolent eyes, and was qualified as an "austere interceptor".  It looked very much like the P.1B, had a reliability that would have made the early F-14 ground crews burst out laughing, and could easily intercept any flying target provided it flew within the airfield boundaries.  After production of 19 F1's, the F1A entered service, and had provision for a detachable in-flight refueling probe.  It could now intercept any flying target, provided there was a tanker above the airfield.  F2 soon followed, with a new engine and better avionics. 

     The T4, two seat side by side trainer, lowered pilots stress level when trying to qualify on the beast.  The F3, which was to be the definitive Lightning, featured an enlarged, though shorter, tailfin and new engines that could withstand any mistreatment in flight, which would have made any early F-14 aircrew burst into tears.  The refueling probe was a standard fit. 

     A T5 variant was derived from the F3, and then appeared the F6: it had all the features English Electric engineers had designed for the P.1A: enlarged ventral tank, cambered wing, over wing tanks and fuel-filled flaps.  The last RAF flight occurred on June 30, 1988.  Some Lightnings saw service for British Aerospace, and played radar target for their successor, the not-quite-so-impressive Tornado F3. 

     There are now a couple of theoretically flyable Lightnings in UK - if only the CAA could allow them to fly - , and a T5 flew in March this year, but in South Africa.  Right time zone for me, wrong hemisphere.

The Model

     Airfix released in 1997 two kits: a F1/F2/F3, and a F2A/F6. The boxes are massive, but really larger than the sprues. The most impressive thing in it is the decal sheet: when you combine both kits, you can build a Lightning from any unit that flew it. 7 options are proposed for the F2A/F6, 6 for the F1/F2/F3. I haven't started my F1/F2/F3 yet, so I cannot comment about it. 

     About the F2A/F6, part breakdown shows the will to use common molds as often as possible: there are parts for upper-nose guns, under-nose guns, fairing for each of those, and a belly tank with or without the gun pack.  When seeing this, I started worrying about my putty tube.  When you look more closely at the parts, you realize the molding is crisp, panel lines are recessed, you got a kit in the same class as the Spitfire and Seafire Airfix released earlier. 

     I didn't like much the decals proposed for the cockpit, so I chose to use Eduard photo-etch set for the F2A/F6, and as I'm lazy as any good southern Frenchie, I chose to use EZ masks.  I opted for a 3-tone low-viz scheme, as I thought it precisely didn't fit the shape of the Lightning, and that the gaudy shark mouth there was on the sheet precisely that did.


Construction

      As I can be amazingly devoid of imagination, I closely followed Airfix's instruction sheet.  I began with the seat, from which I cut all ejection handles, as they were replaced by the nicer ones from Eduard.  The belts were from Eduard's set, and the thirteen parts they are made of prompted me to use a language my karma should suffer of for a couple of decades.  I grinded away every surface detail from the consoles and the instrument panel and glued Eduard parts in place.   The throttles and various handles and levers protruding from the side consoles had a similar effect on me than the belts. 

        I obeyed Airfix instructions about the painting of the cockpit.  Belts were painted olive drab, and the buckles silver.  I assembled then the intake duct, and stuffed it with lead before gluing the nose cone in place.   Please put a lot of ballast in there, as this kit IS tail-heavy.  I learned it the hard way, and had to put lead in the missile bodies.  I sawed off the kit nozzles, and bent Eduard's ones and glued them in place.  They are gorgeous, but invisible once you have closed the fuselage.  They were painted using Testors Metallizer Burnt Metal.  I drilled the various holes for the auxiliary intakes, and for the exterior piping specific to the F6.  Then I dry fitted the cockpit assembly, the air intakes and the fuselage halves. 

     Trouble was brewing: there were ugly gaps at the joint between the fuselage and the front undercarriage bay, and when I held together the fuselage halves at one end, I had them an inch apart at the other end.  First problem was addressed by using thin styrene sheet, and the other by gluing one inch at a time, and letting it thoroughly dry.  A bit of putty was needed at the joint, though.  The wings brought their fair share of filing, sanding and filling, as the main parts are standard for the F2A and the F6, but the leading edge is not.  The mating of the wings to the fuselage needs some puttying, too.  The worst part of it was assembling the ventral gun pack to the fuselage, as there are lots of panel lines there, and you have to go light on the sanding.  I didn't see any picture of parked Lightnings with airbrakes deployed, so I decided to shut them.  Fitting them flush to the fuselage was rather troublesome, too. 

       I went then to the main undercarriage.  I added to the legs the brake fluid pipe, and three collars to hold it on the upper part of the leg.   You can see these collars in REPLIC #81.  All legs and wheel hubs were painted Testors Metallizer Aluminum, and the tyres were Aeromaster Enamel Tyre Black.  I set aside the undercarriage, and went on painting the model.  Still imagination-free, I used Humbrol colors.  Now,  I have a reason for hating airbrushing Humbrol paints.  Next time, it'll be Gunze! 

        I then sprayed a coat of Johnson's Klir (Frog for Future).  I used the decals straight from Airfix sheet, and they went smoothly, but had to be helped by a fair amount of Aeroset/Aerosol.  The air intake ring was painted at this time, using the good old Humbrol number 11.  I glued the undercarriage in place at that moment (silly me), and experienced an unusual amount of doubt, fear, and rage, all of them mixed, because Airfix's instructions are almost anything but explicit.  A thorough review of the available documents helped me correctly assembling the main undercarriage legs.  A coat of Aeromaster matt varnish followed.  I installed the IFR probe then, and went on weathering the beast.  I used powdered pastel chalk, which I ran in the panel lines with a brush before wiping the excess away, following the airflow.  Another coat of varnish, and the lead-filled Redtops were finally glued in place.

Overall

     The British Lightning is one of the most astounding flying machines ever.  This Airfix kit is a pretty good one, warts and all.  I will do another one, as an early bird, and I already have Aeroclub and CMK conversions for T4/T5.   Here is an aircraft with an unusual look, and a 40$+ kit which, even if not Tami-gawa like, really gives justice to it. I have already bought two of them, and I will gladly buy two more.


Sources

Wings Of Fame Vol 7
Replic #81
Damien Burke's Lightning page

Sebastien

Photos and text © by Sebastien Privat