I’m about to start a 1/48 Academy F-111c for my father who was a ‘Pig Driver’ for many years.
Biggest problem is the total lack of cockpit detail.
I see Verlinden and Black Box both do upgrades but I can’t seem to source them here in Australia.
Squadrom tell mr they can’t get them, yet Verlinden tell me they are still in production and of the list of suppliers they gave me none have answered my emails.
Any one know where i can get either of these cockpit kits in Australia. I know Scaledown do a huge range of upgrades but no luck on the cockpits.
Any ideas as to what is the better of the two? I do want the better, but I’ll settle for what I can get.
Well, Verlinden is pretty much gone now and Black Box only did limited run items. The BB set was for the -F varient (I think). Not too familiar on the a/c so I couldn’t say what would need changing.
I think the BB set is the better of the two. After seeing the Verl. set I purchased the BB. All the detail one can handle and is probably a better value at all resin and no messing with etch.
No idea were to find one though. They have not been around for some time. You could try them direct here first and see if they are availible.
Mark T, you could try either Snowy Mountain Models (in Canberra) or Hannants (UK). Failing that, pop over to www.aussiemodellerinternational.com & post your question there. I’m curious to know what the outcome will be as I have this kit too, & want to do a ‘C’ or ‘G’. Mine has been sitting on the bottom of the pile with no immediate intentions of getting to it - I thought it would be fairly easy to come by the 'pit detail set.
If you scroll to the bottom of the page, it gives an address and recomendation for a shop that serves RAAF Amberly called “Vogler and Son” in Ipswich, QLD.
I’m not sure if you are aware of them, but I suspect with their proximity to Amberly, they may be your best bet for sourcing F-111 related modeling stuff in Australia.
Also according to that page, Scaledown does have a 1/48 cockpit set in the works, waiting to be mastered apparently.
Are you set on a resin cockpit or PE set? I know that Eduard has a very nice Aardvark cockpit set in PE that will most likely be very obtainable down under over the resin sets, and maybe a little bit easier on the pocket book too.
I’ve used that set a few times because the Black Box set wasn’t avialable at the time I was building the Vark but it works very nicely with the kits tub
I started and never finished an F111 a while back. I did pick up a BB #48050 resin cockpit that looks pretty good to me. The piece actually painted up very nicely.
Maybe I should get that one back on the work bench…
Cheers upnorth, know that site really well, though haven’t visited for a while. You can bet that cockpit set will be the most accurate too. He has extraordinarily good access to the pigs at Amberley. I know the shop in Ipswich really well too - nice bunch of people. Yep he is reasonably close to the base; has a lot of RAAFies as customers too.