Testing Times
British Military Test Aircraft Part 1

Air-Graphic Models, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Graham Carter

Test and trials aircraft have always held a certain attraction amongst modellers, witness some of the early Revell and Airfix kits such as the SR53, P1127, Stiletto and Rotodyne, and more recently companies like Maintrack and Mach2 have produced kits of some weird and wonderful planes. Their appearance and schemes are usually eye-catching and add a colourful selection to a collection. This sheet, and others in the series, allows modellers to put some interesting schemes on more familiar aircraft.

The two sheets that make up this set are beautifully produced in gloss finish with perfect register, great colour density and very little carrier film.

Best of all, in my humble opinion, they are on blue paper so that the white bits its don’t disappear against the background and so test my ageing eyesight! Thanks Air Graphics!

The instructions are in a full-colour twelve-page A5 booklet with four views of each subject and a few colour images, although I must say some of these are a wee bit small ( but I think that producing these to a greater size would make the instructions too expensive).

Each scheme has clear colour and decal placement drawings and notes and indicate which decals are to come from the donor kit.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Thumbnail panels:

Again a list of suitable kits is mentioned, although some of these may be hard to find these days. The aircraft covered are:

1. DH104 Devon C.1. VP975 from the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE), Farnborough, 1964 in white and silver with lower fuselage and upper wings in Oxford blue for the A-Model kit,

2. Westland Whirlwind HAR.5 XJ445 , RAE as above in 1968 in red over cream colours, for the Airfix or Italeri kits,

3. Avro Anson T.21 VS562 of Aerospace & Armament Experimental Establishment (AAEE), Boscome Down, 1962 with white roof, silver overall and red fuselage stripe and dayglo and patches over the wings and tail, for the Aeroclub kit,

4. Harvard IIb, KF183 AAEE as above in 1968, in overall yellow for AIrfix, Heller or Eduard kits,

5. Beagle Basset XS743 of ETPS, Boscombe Down in 1990, in white, Light Aircraft grey and red scheme, for the AIrfix kit,

6. Gloster Javelin FAW.9 XH897 of Fighter Test Squadron AAEE in 1970 in that great red and white scheme for the Airfix or ancient FROG/Novo kit,

7. Hawker Siddeley HS125 XW930 of RAE, Bedford, 1982 in Light Aircraft Grey, white and red with blue cheat line for a modified AIrfix kit, and

8. Folland/HS Gnat T.1 XP505 of RAE, Bedford in 1982 in Red, White and Oxford Blue colours and great long yellow and black striped probes sticking out of nose and both wing-tips, for the modified Airfix kit.

The sheet mentions a number of available or proposed additions/conversions from Air-Graphics that will enable the aircraft to be produced.

Included is a very useful colour cross reference card that lists all the colours used on these aircraft and the model paint company numbers for each. Manufacturers covered are Humbrol, Xtracolour, Hataka, Modelmaster, Gunze Sangyo, Tamiya and Lifecolor. As expected Humbrol produce all of them, with only Hataka and Xtracolour coming close.

I am a huge fan of this type of aircraft and look forward to adding to my collection - I’ve already pulled out my Aeroclub T.21, AIrfix Basset and Gnat kits to contemplate their starts!! If this is also your ‘thing’, then this is a highly recommended sheet.

Thanks to Air-Graphic Models for the sample.

Text Copyright © 2021 by Graham Carter
Images Copyright © 2021 by Brett Green
This Page Created on 2 November, 2021
Last updated 2 November, 2021

Back to HyperScale Main Page