Well, as I've stated before I am a 1/48 guy and there's no turning back. Although I will step it up to 1/32 for Golden Age air racers and certain select planes and I do have two of the three V-bombers in 1/72 (hopefully with the completion of the trio with the Victor come Christmas) I tend to stick to 1/48.
Now, I love early jet aviation and the Soviets had some interesting aircraft fielded during the 50's and 60's as did pretty much everybody else. One of the planes I always thought was kind of neat was the Beagle. I had no idea one existed in 1/48 until I heard rumors of HPH's 1/48 Concorde and visited their site where I found this gem of a kit! I ordered it from UMM in Illinois and started working on it while I was waiting for my XB-70 to arrive.
Apart from resin cockpits and a trial run with Neo-Mega's SAAB J-29 I have not built a resin kit before. I highly recommend this one for people who are looking to get their feet wet in the medium. I started with the engine nacelles which include the main gear bays.
The nacelle halves come complete with no flash or pour blocks. There is some nice detail molded on the inner surface of the intake, and with the supports for the fairing there won't be much of a seam inside to deal with.
(About an 1/8 of an inch is all.) The bays are made up of fifteen pieces, eight of which are the door latches, some of mine which are not there as they are TINY and decided to take flight upon removal of the backing sheet!
You must remember to finish the hole that is started on the bay panel, and then mark and drill a solid block they provide to go on top of the bay.
(I ALMOST forgot and went to go attach the nacelles to the wings before I came to my senses!) After the bays are complete, they are assembled into the nacelle halves along with the intake bullet and block off plate and the support for the jet pipe. the halves fit together very nicely and will require a minimum of filler (or none at all as one of mine polished right up!)
[The fit of the nacelles to the wings is quite good on the bottom and might have been better on the top had I not removed a little less material. The seams will still be pretty easy to deal with though.
The wings also are nicely done with a spar running right through them which goes in a hole in the fuselage.
(I may use some aluminum tubing to bridge them when everything goes together for extra strength.) a little cleanup of the mating surface and everything looks fine.
After the nacelles I moved on to the fuselage.
HPH has provided a full tail gunner's compartment along with the B/N and pilot cockpits. The enclosures are all cast in the fuselage and must be opened up. (With great care as the fuselage halves are quite thin!) These pieces are one of the few parts I've seen from HPH that have a pour block to remove, and I should have went for the new blade on my first attempt, as I broke the fuselage.
Fortunately it was on the bottom, so it will be easier to bondo up and hide! The hatches for the gunner and B/N are replaced with resin components. Care should also be taken around the partition between the cockpits!
The bomb bay take a little time to build as there are many ribs and formers to clean up and assemble,
but the effect is quite pleasing when done and should look great under paint!
The light showing through the material gives you an idea how thin the fuselage halves are, but when the bomb bay is inserted it all stiffens up nicely!
I have to say I'm having fun with this one! It's going much like an injection molded kit (albeit one with a lot of flash) and is making my first resin experience quite enjoyable! I just don't know why one hasn't been done in 1/48 before as it's only about as big as a B-25! (I was expecting it to be larger!)
1 additional image. Click to enlarge.
