years ago i built one of these but i can’t remember who made it. i remember that it had the option of putting the 2 torpedos under the fuselage. can anybody help me track one down i would love to build it again. i do remember that it wasn’t a very detailed kit, but i still like it
Matchbox made one back in the day…was it made of three different colors of plastic?
They appear regularly on eBay. Ther are four there at the moment, two ‘buy it now’ at £4.99 + p&p.
Cheers,
Chris.
no it was all the same color plastic
Could it be the even older Frog kit /reissued later in the USSR as NOVO/. Eastern express, Maquette and Alanger are repacking the old Frog/Novo kits so you can try there but i`m not sure about the Beaufighter.
It may have been the ancient Airfix kit. I don’t know about two torpedos, it could only carry one. The Airfix kit had nothing at all in the way of interior detail - just pegs on the fuselage sides to glue the figures to. Single-piece engine cowlings with the front of the engines moulded in half-relief, and typical of Airfix kits of the period, lots and lots of raised rivets.
IIRC, the Matchbox kit mentioned above represented a “late” TF Mk X, with the “thimble” radar nose and fin fillet/extension.
If you want the best Beaufigter in 1/72, then hands down its got to be the Hasegawa kits (they did several variants) from about 10 years ago, if you can find one. Very nice… [8D]
Both the Airfix and the FROG Beaufighters had only one torpedo. The issue with the Airfix Beaufighter (which dates from 1958, and is still in the catalogue [:I] ) is not so much the rivets (which can, after all, easily be sanded off) but scale accuracy (chack out the depth of the fuselage and the shape of the engine nacelles) and the level of detail (two crew members sitting on pegs and protecting the family jewels, and a vaguely broomstick-like thing masquarading as the observer’s MG)
Truth is, as Phil says, the only 1/72 Beaufighter worth building is the Hasegawa one, and that’s currently as rare as rocking horse sh*t.
Cheers,
Crhis
well i looked up the airfix kit and that looks like its the one. i do remember now about the pegs protected jewels and broomsticks for the interior. but i know the kit i built had 2 torpedos b/c i have both of them in my spares box along with the mounting bracket.a great mystery of life, maybe the kit had an extra torpedo in the box (possible since i got it in a raffle at the local IPMS meeting). i also looked at getting one of the special hobby beauforts, maybe i’ll get both and build a diorama of them on an attack run in some kind of a formation
Thing is, in real life, the Beaufighter was only fitted to carry a single 18" torpedo along the fuselage centreline, so I can’t see where the need for two torpedos in a kit would come from. Certainly, any attempt to carry two torpedos would severely compromise range and performance.
Here’s a built-up OOB Airfix Beaufighter:
http://www.histarmar.com.ar/Modelismo/ModCMey/Bombarderos/Beaux8.jpg
Cheers,
Chris.
I am wrapping up mine to, heres the link to it:
/forums/896691/ShowPost.aspx
Make sure to pick up some extra filler putty!
David