CyberHobby 1/72 DeHavilland Vampire FB.5
This is the CyberHobby 1/72 DeHavilland Vampire FB.5, warts and all.
As previously mentioned in my in-box review, the cockpit is sparse and entirely fictitious.
For the most part, construction was straightforward. I filled and sanded out all of the fuselage panel lines, as they don't appear to be present in photos of the actual aircraft (because it was largely wooden.).
The single-piece booms were nice, and the butt-joint was so-so. The main landing gear is oversimplified, as is the nose gear. As well, the nose gear doesn't seem to sight "right".
The windscreen was damaged while being carefully removed from the sprue. Apparently, not careful enough. The heavy sprue-gate made it difficult to remove. The windscreen and canopy both fit very poorly.
The decals performed OK, but the whites are translucent. Checkerboard can be seen through the boom roundels.
2g of noseweight is recommended, but I didn't have any...the nose wheel is superglued to the base.
It was finished with Testors Model Master acrylics and metalizers.
Very nice little plane! Yep...very nice indeed!
Really nice work in this tiny scale, I have two Vampires in 1/48 which I thought were small !, mine are Hobby craft and not nearly as good.
N.
It's neat, very neat!
Great model James, but by your commrnts on the build i'm not sold on the kit! Airfix released the two seater a couple of months back, have you got their kit? I'm wondering how it compares...
Hi Gregor,
I dont have the Airfix kit, but I'd go with it first, based on what I know about this one. Also, Airfix is cheaper.
well done jamie
Thanks for the kind words, everyone.
nice job very nice job
Very informative to see this kit built, thank you. Good choice to fill in the panel lines on the nose, and to my eye the result looks much like a Vampire. I must add that the solid wheel hubs look very odd, the Vampires are normally associated with 3-spoked wheels a la Tempest. Also, there are no FOD guards in the intakes, but maybe these were too fiddly for Cyberhobby to mould?