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Alistair Gauld
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Airfix 1/72 English Electric Lightning F.2AEast Fortune Museum of Flight 2019....ish

September 14, 2020 · in Aviation · · 12 · 2K

Hi There,
On our last visit to East Fortune Innis absolutely fell in love with the displayed there.
He listened to the audio and looked at her all round and then sat in the Vulcan Ejection seat next to her and just stared lovingly for ages.

So, as a surprise I thought why not give the tooling a go. My last Lightning build was also an Airfix kit but that was about 52 years ago and was my first kit ever. This one turned out a little bit better than that one.

Primed with Ultimate Grey Primer.
Painted with Colourcoats Dark Green, Light Aircraft Grey, Medium Sea Grey, AK Extreme Aluminium, Polished Aluminium, Rubber Black.
Washed lightly with Citadel Nuln Oil.
Finished with Windsor & Newton Galeria Satin Varnish.

The ..ish in the title is there because she is not exactly like XN776 as displayed. I put the stencils on just to give her a wee bit more visual appeal as the paint job at East Fortune seems rather drab.

As always, Many Thanks for looking and any comments and criticism are welcome.

Cheers,
Alistair

Reader reactions:
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12 responses

  1. Beautifully done Lightning! I did that old Airfix tooling many years ago too. maybe it's time to do this one.

    • Thanks very much.

      There are a couple of issues with ejector marks and such on the inside of the fuselage that can cause fit issues but nothing a bit of sanding can't sort out.

      Cheers,
      Alistair

  2. Good looking Lightning! Such a cool aircraft.

  3. You created a great looking Lightning, Alistair.
    Always liked this aircraft, impressive look when it had the fuel tanks attached on top of the wings.

  4. Nicely done Alistair.

  5. Nice Lightning, Alistair!
    The "green over grey" camo looks fantastic and suits the Lightning a lot!

    • Hi Spiros,

      Thanks very much.
      As regards the scheme. In service she would have been Dark Green over Natural Metal but this airframe was used at Leuchars as a decoy for many years and was then repainted in these colours by the RAF before donating her to East Fortune.

      Cheers,
      Alistair

  6. Hi Alistair,
    You are an awful person, reigniting my desire for an Airfix 1/48 lightning with this 1/72 build of yours! Thanks for sharing it- I had the opportunity to visit East Fortune Museum on one of my young married trips to Scotland- also was enthralled by the BAC lightning in the dark green scheme...so I will now plot how to get the 1/48 Airfix kit again for a time, lets see if I eventually go through with it!

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