Seafox!

My latest modelling output is the Matchbox 1/72nd scale Fairey Seafox I bought in Warwick.

There are two schemes included in the kit. I chose to build the one in bare metal; an aircraft of 713 Catapult Flight, HMS Arethusa at Kalafrana, Malta in 1939. 

The kit is not the easiest to build. The thin struts mean that several stages have to be glued up and then left to dry for quite some time. In the end I found myself applying superglue to fix joints that came apart when handling the model to fix later parts.

The decals went on remarkably well for their age. The only problems were with the small stencils on the undersides of the wing trailing edges. These mostly disintegrated but as they aren't visible from most angles I'm not too bothered.

The Seafox was a naval reconnaissance aircraft used for finding enemy ships at sea. It's unlikely I'll be playing WW2 Mediterranean naval combat in 1/72nd scale but I included a magnet in the body of the model just in case I want to deploy it on one of my magnetised flight stands.

There should be rigging wires between the wing struts and a wire aerial between the tail and the mast but for now I think I'm happy with the model as it stands.

I've done a lot of aircraft in bare metal recently; the Vallejo Air Aluminium is fabulous paint. However, I'll be taking a break from it now. Next on the workbench is a camouflaged Vampire T.11 in Chilean Air Force colours using an after-market decal sheet.