Another Early Jet

The 1/72nd scale early jet aircraft kick continues. This time I've gone for one of the newer Airfix kits; the Meteor F Mk8. Apparently, in design terms, this is scaled down from their 1/48th scale version and it shows in the complexity.

The aircraft kits of my youth rarely included more cockpit detail that a floor, a pilot's seat and maybe a control column. This one takes thirteen parts and twelve diagrammed steps just to give the (undersized) pilot somewhere to sit. 

The fit of the parts is generally pretty good. A few issues presented themselves, however. The tolerances on several of the undercarriage components are very fine. It may be better to assemble them all before painting. In addition the fine tolerances make it tricky to seat the air brakes properly in the closed position. I opted to glue them in the open position. 

As you can see I went with the Royal Belgian Air Force markings. The kit also comes with two RAF options one of which has a full bubble canopy and differently shaped jet intakes for which alternative parts are supplied. 

The decals are by Cartograf, which basically means they're excellent and go on with practically no problems. This is just as well as Airfix have not skimped here. Somewhere in the vicinity of 90 separate stencils are provided, some of them less than half a millimetre long! I stopped applying them when I felt I'd reached the point of diminishing returns.

There are also a few unused clear parts so I suspect a photo-reconnaissance version is not far away. 

If you fancy having a go at a more complex kit and/or want to see how Airfix's modern products outshine their earlier output, you could do worse than trying the Meteor.