Belting Price for the Big Airfix Typhoon

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From Hornby direct, an absolutely brilliant price, suffice to say I ordered one.....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Airfix-Scale-Hawker-Typhoo...

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Mind's due tomorrow as well! Can't wait

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Zad said:

From Florymodel's review it looks a very nice kit, just let down by some parts. Almost like they sprues are made by 2 different suppliers. Check your transparent parts are intact, from photos on the Britmodeller site it looks like many of the perspex canopies are cracked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw2oh4C4X_A

It is rather puzzling just how much detail will be totally hidden - I'm sure many builders will make theirs partially cut-away. For the money, I'm really surprised that it didn't come with some photo etch, but the detail on the stressed skin and so on looks amazing.

Flory certainly can jabber on! Loves the sound of his own voice!

Mine arrived today as well, and again it has a cracked canopy like a lot out there...

but i'm sure Airfix will sort it out...

BTW the kit's amazing! the surface detailing really does raise the bar, I expect that the competition will follow soon!

I think it'll be Pulveriser IV for me....

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I emailed Airfix on Sunday, but stupidly forgot to put my address in the message, they emailed me for the address on Monday, and
my replacement Canopy sprue arrived today, no cracks at all, just a little distortion towards the rear, which is of no bother at all.

Good work Airfix, a small hiccup that's been solved with outstanding customer service.

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lufbramatt said:

All the design work is done in the UK, the toolmaking is done in China, production is done in India. Airfix uses completely different toolmakers and factories to the rest of Hornby so has not been affected by the same issues as Hornby railways. Production of all Airfix kits has been in India since 2010. Decals are printed by Cartograph in Italy though, as the right sort of printing presses don't exist in India (yet) and the huge swings in humidity result in alignment issues between colours.

the canopy tool ran fine in the toolmaker's moulding machines in china, however, different machines in India meant that a tool mod had to be carried out to the feed gate locally to make it fill correctly. This in turn led to the cracking issues- it's down to the shrinkage of the plastic and the size of the feed gate. Hopefully this has now been resolved.

It's a real shame this was not picked up by QC, the project was on time for a June release until we had the issues with the canopy tool, as a result everyone was put under massive pressure to get the kit to retailers. The kit's release also coincided with a factory move (to bigger premises) which hasn't helped.

Anyone with issues please contact customer support and a new canopy will be sent out ASAP. Apologies to everyone affected, it should not have happened.

Edited by lufbramatt on Thursday 31st July 12:08

Hi Matt, thanks for the explanation, just thought i'd relay a conversation that i've had this morning at my local model shop whilst collecting some supplies for the big tiffie, mentioned that i'd got the Typhoon as a prezzy and just how impressed I was with it, Canopy issue excepted (Airfix CS sorted that out in 3 working days!) he stated that the kit was designed and built by Trumpeter! and just boxed by Airfix! what a berk!

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Eric Mc said:

Much as I am a true Airfix fan (boy), they do seem to have had an issue with flawed canopies in some of their recent kits. The new 1/72 Lightning seems to have suffered in a similar way.

Is quality control from 4,000 miles away plus proving difficult?

I'm sure they'll get the transparencies right Eric, the alternative I suppose is to bring the manufacturing back to the UK, but that would then increase costs by 30-50%