I bought the Airfix de Havilland Vampire kit when it was available cheap from Lidl (or was it Aldi?) before Christmas. Unfortunately, though, it comes with only one set of markings; for a Royal New Zealand Air Force aircraft. I'd already built that one so I invested in a set of after-market transfers from Xtradecal, paying significantly more than I did for the kit itself!
I've just finished the model. It represents a Vampire T.11 of Grupo 8, Chilean Air Force at Cerro Moreno airbase, Antofagasta in 1973-74.
I wasn't 100% impressed with the decals. The "NO PASO" (do not walk) markings on the wings are printed with the decal film only covering the lines themselves, not the whole of the area. As such, as soon as they came off the backing paper they collapsed into a ball of red lines that I couldn't untangle. In the end I used the markings from the kit for the trailing edge markings.
It's far from the best model I've made but the colour scheme's unusual and I quite like seeing it in the display cabinet alongside the RNZAF version.
If I see another copy of the kit I'll grab it. There's a pre-UDI Rhodesian aircraft that's calling to me. It looks very British apart from the African spears on the wing roundels!
2 comments:
For a moment I was expecting to see an exotic South American bloodsucker! ☺
Neil
I kinda had that in mind as I picked the title!
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