EE Canberra B.8, SAAF, Airfix 1/72

Another Airfix kit, this time the Canberra, which was one of the first of the new moldings after Hornby took over the company and injected some new life into it. A new Canberra kit was much needed and Airfix managed to deliver a quality kit with minimal cost. It’s not a super-detailed kit but it offers incredible value for money – simple construction with minimal fuss and very reasonably priced at $25 (the limited run High Planes kit ran at about $35-40 before shipping).  This particular boxing is the Canberra B.8(I).  The “I” stands for “interdictor.”

The cockpit is quite detailed and I had a lot of fun putting it together. Too bad the guy in the bombardier’s compartment has to pretty much sit in the dark (British pilots would call the bombardier’s position the Black Hole), with a little window on the side. The bombardier would also crawl forward into the clear nose to operate the bombsight (remember that this is a late 1940’s era jet, with late WW2-era bombsight technology).

 

I had to pack a ridiculous amount of weight in the front. It was a hassle to squeeze in that much weight in so little space. If I were to do this again, I would use smaller weights like #7 1/2 shot pellet, rolled up in plumber’s putty as it would fit in those little crevices better.

The fuselage went together fairly well. I used a bit of Mr Surfacer 500 to fill a seam line, sanded, polished and then rescribed the panel lines. The wings were the easiest thing to put together. Two gigantic wing halves glued together, then stick the engine face on! The tail rudder needed some modification though – the tail had these panel lines that look really odd and detract from the final look, so I filled it with putty and sanded the surface smooth. Once the fuselage, wings and tail surfaces are put together you really get a sense of how big of a plane this is.
 

 

The ejection seat is out of the box, but nicely detailed. It has molded-on seat belts (perfectly fine for the tiny, dark cockpit) and according to the instructions and some of the reference photos I found, a bright yellow seat cushion that was for some reason my favorite part of the entire model (probably because it was so brightly colored). The bombardier’s seat is slightly different from the pilot’s so be careful when you’re putting it together. I stuck the engine faces on and it was from there that I found my first real issue with the model. Somehow, one of the engine faces was round and the other ovoid.  I can’t remember how it turned out this way – either I oversanded one of them or there was a molding issue. To correct it, I slathered on some Milliput, shaped it into the basic shape with some water and my finger, then sanded it down after the putty had cured.

 

After a coat of primer to insure that I was happy with the seams, I sprayed the entire model down with Warhammer’s Mithril Silver. For an acrylic paint I was really impressed by how fine the metallic flakes were. A major bonus for this was that I could thin it with tap water. The paint went on smoothly, was dry to the touch within 10 minutes and fully cured within a day.

 

  

Decals are for the markings of a South African Air Force (SAAF) bird during the war with Angola.  The decals took three days to apply – the wingwalk lines went on first, then sealed, then the stencils went on next, sealed again and finally the unit markings and roundels. The decals were in perfect register and were a joy to use. The cannon belly packed looked really neat and I added a pair of rocket pods for extra effect. Staining was achieved with a mix of black and gray pastels ground up and applied with a brush.

I wanted the aircraft to look war-weary so I sprayed a flat coat on the model, unfortunately dulling the beautiful metallic sheen on the model. I then added drops of Testor’s Model Master Buffing Aluminum Plate to a cap, wrapped a rag around my forefinger, then rubbed the paint on the model in spots to add some shine. My understanding was that the aircraft were painted silver, so the idea was to make it look like there are still patches of shiny paint left on the aircraft. The final touch was to add an antenna wire using a fishing line glued on with CA, then painted a dark metallic color.

 

The Canberra is a very nice model, and again, good value for money, that looks fantastic with patience and a little care.  I also have the PR.9 version that I’ll be doing in colors flown over Iraq in 1991.  Hopefully that’ll show up on this blog soon.