OK - Tell me about Lancasters...
Discussion
In 1:48, Tamiya is the only game in town. The fuselage cross section is wrong though (should be egg shaped not parallel sided) and the canopy and engines are weird looking. Later releases have corrected engines though.
In 1:72, you have more choice. Old and new airfix, Hasegawa and revell.
Old Airfix is covered in rivets and very simple, shape not bad but moulds are way past their best, this hasn't been on sale for a couple of years but you still see them in shops.
New airfix is the most accurate in terms of shape, little bit tricky in places but goes together well if you check all the fits first.
Latest revell has some accuracy issues, wheels too big, canopy shape is wrong, turrets strange shape etc. Some nice detail in places though.
Hasegawa is the most expensive, interior very basic and canopy wrong, not bad though.
IMO the latest airfix one is the best. Look out for the BBMF set, A50158, you get a Lanc, and two spitfires for £30.
In 1:72, you have more choice. Old and new airfix, Hasegawa and revell.
Old Airfix is covered in rivets and very simple, shape not bad but moulds are way past their best, this hasn't been on sale for a couple of years but you still see them in shops.
New airfix is the most accurate in terms of shape, little bit tricky in places but goes together well if you check all the fits first.
Latest revell has some accuracy issues, wheels too big, canopy shape is wrong, turrets strange shape etc. Some nice detail in places though.
Hasegawa is the most expensive, interior very basic and canopy wrong, not bad though.
IMO the latest airfix one is the best. Look out for the BBMF set, A50158, you get a Lanc, and two spitfires for £30.
Just doing my bit for the marketing department 
To be fair the Revell kit could have been really nice but it has some strange errors, in some places it's great then they put huge toy-like wheels in it and made the back of the canopy curve the wrong way. The wing is too flat (should have more dihedral) and the radiators are strange. It's good value for money though.
There was also an old Matchbox kit, the original airfix Lanc from the 50's, the very old Revell one, and I think academy minicraft did one in 1/144?
I had them all stacked up on my desk for ages and put most of them together so I feel qualified to comment
To be fair the Revell kit could have been really nice but it has some strange errors, in some places it's great then they put huge toy-like wheels in it and made the back of the canopy curve the wrong way. The wing is too flat (should have more dihedral) and the radiators are strange. It's good value for money though.
There was also an old Matchbox kit, the original airfix Lanc from the 50's, the very old Revell one, and I think academy minicraft did one in 1/144?
I had them all stacked up on my desk for ages and put most of them together so I feel qualified to comment
Edited by lufbramatt on Friday 26th September 06:41
I think I've only ever built a few very old Revell versions, and possibly the Matchbox one - in the '70's.
Aren't HKM bringing out a 1:32 Lancaster this year?
ETA:
Aren't HKM bringing out a 1:32 Lancaster this year?
ETA:
lufbramatt said:
I had them all stacked up on my desk for ages and put most of them together so I feel qualified to comment
You're obviously far more qualified to give an opinion than most, and I'm sure you're right, it's just that your conclusion did raise a smile, and bordered on a stifled chuckle.Edited by dr_gn on Thursday 25th September 23:26
I'll support Matt on his assertions. In this case, the new Airfix Lancasters are without doubt, the best in town in 1/72.
They also come in a number of variants - standard Mark I/III, Dambuster and, most importantly, a Hercules engined Mark II. The Airfix Mark II is the first mainstream kit of this variant in any scale.
Airfix also produces a lovely set of airfield vehicles and support equipment to go with the Lancasters - if you wanted to do a diorama.
The only drawbacks of the Airfix kits is their price (usually around the £24 mark) and to some extent they are almost too well engineered - with extremely tight fit and rather complex asssembly.
Last weekend, at the Farnborough Modelfest Show, I saw a number of new Airfix Lancasters built up and they all looked excellent - especially the Mark IIs.
As well as the 1/72 Lancasters listed earlier, there are some even older mouldings that you might see knocking about. Airfix had an original Lancaster kit which was released back in the early 1960s. This is now only a collectors item. Likewise, Revell produced a Lancaster in the early 1960s - which was also released in a Dambuster version. This too has now been superseded by all the more modern kits and is really only a collectors item too.
Finally, FROG produced a Lancaster around 1974 - near to the time of their demise - so you don't see it around too much. Again, it's not really that great a kit.
As Matt says, Airfix's "middle era" Lancaster (1980 or so) is quite accurate in outline but a bit basic by modern standards and has too many rivets. The one good point on this kit is that it was also released as a Mark I "Special" with the parts supplied to assemble the amended bomb bay and a Grand Slam bomb.
They also come in a number of variants - standard Mark I/III, Dambuster and, most importantly, a Hercules engined Mark II. The Airfix Mark II is the first mainstream kit of this variant in any scale.
Airfix also produces a lovely set of airfield vehicles and support equipment to go with the Lancasters - if you wanted to do a diorama.
The only drawbacks of the Airfix kits is their price (usually around the £24 mark) and to some extent they are almost too well engineered - with extremely tight fit and rather complex asssembly.
Last weekend, at the Farnborough Modelfest Show, I saw a number of new Airfix Lancasters built up and they all looked excellent - especially the Mark IIs.
As well as the 1/72 Lancasters listed earlier, there are some even older mouldings that you might see knocking about. Airfix had an original Lancaster kit which was released back in the early 1960s. This is now only a collectors item. Likewise, Revell produced a Lancaster in the early 1960s - which was also released in a Dambuster version. This too has now been superseded by all the more modern kits and is really only a collectors item too.
Finally, FROG produced a Lancaster around 1974 - near to the time of their demise - so you don't see it around too much. Again, it's not really that great a kit.
As Matt says, Airfix's "middle era" Lancaster (1980 or so) is quite accurate in outline but a bit basic by modern standards and has too many rivets. The one good point on this kit is that it was also released as a Mark I "Special" with the parts supplied to assemble the amended bomb bay and a Grand Slam bomb.
I've made this 1950's Airfix version more times than I can actually remember (well, not this actual kit, which I got for a fiver on eBay.) I had originally thought to finish it to as high a standard as possible out of the box, but a. it's been bodged too far already, and b. the kit is far more crude than I remembered. The mid upper turret bears minimal resemblance to the real thing for example.
So the bits will stay in the box, which I is really what I bought it for in the first place.
As an aside some of these old kits were terrific value for money. The Invader, for example, has so many optional components that they only just fit in the box, and it's not even a very big plane, more like a Series 3 or 4 than a 5. Here's the rest of series 5, type 4 box 1974.
Sorry some of them are obscured by bubble wrap but they're all there. Some are quite rare, the Friendship for example. I got the red stripe version of that kit to fill the gap, then Eric posted a link beyond which I found the elusive type 4 boxing I was looking for. As a designer I think the type 4 box is a high point in Airfix packaging. The branding and typography of previous packaging had been all over the place. Type 4 resolved the brand recognition established by the artwork by Cross, et al, with the new, round logo. IMO the current packaging is OK and no doubt it has been researched to death as the best solution, and the new CGI pics by Adam Tooby etc are wonderful. But I don't think any Airfix boxes since have matched the design purity of Type 4.
In case you're wondering my collection begins and ends with series 5, I thank the timely intervention of my wife.
This probably gives the O/P enough info to make a decision:
http://www.hyperscale.com/2013/reviews/kits/airfix...
As usual with their new tool stuff, it's the surface detail that really lets the Airfix kit down.
http://www.hyperscale.com/2013/reviews/kits/airfix...
As usual with their new tool stuff, it's the surface detail that really lets the Airfix kit down.
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