Fairey Gannet AS.Mk.1/4

Trumpeter, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Glen Porter

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We have waited a long time for a new 1/72 scale Fairey Gannet kit, but finally Trumpeter has released their AS.Mk.1/4.

Was it worth the wait?

Well, it is a big improvement over the old Frog/Revell kit and it will certainly build into a nice replica of the aircraft but in Trumpeter's rush to get this kit on the market they've fluffed a couple of areas. More on this later.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

The main sprue (A) carries the fuselage halves, prop spinners and most of the interior parts. As I said above , the interior is lacking detail. This is the first area where I feel Trumpeter have let us down. The instrument panels have some detail but not all and the separate sidewalls have nothing but the basic shape of the panel. The only other detail in the front office is a head rest, seat, control column and rudder pedals. The other two pits have even less. On the up side, there is a box-frame that goes between the fuselage halves which provides two mounting spars for the mid-mounted wings to ease dihedral difficulties.

Sprue (B) has the main upper and lower wing parts, ailerons, inner landing flaps, main gear doors and actuating rods. The landing flaps are shown in the instructions as deployed but there is no stowed option. However, looking at the parts, I think it should not be too difficult. Similarly, there is no wing fold option, unlike the Wyvern kit and this looks far more troublesome to achieve with-out an up-date set. Are you listening Aires or any-one else?

The (C) sprue has the rest of the smaller parts such as tail planes, wheels, gear legs, crew seats, prop blades etc and the (D) has all the clear parts. These clear parts are very well moulded except that they are somewhat thick. Whether they can be thinned down enough to be displayed open remains to be seen. Also there is an annoying seam right down the centre of all three canopies, hopefully only on the outside.

Decals cover four aircraft, 2 Royal Navy and 1 West German Navy. The 2 RN Gannets are XA 322/771-CU from 769 Squadron at RNAS Culdrose 1957 and XA402/327-B from 820 Squadron on HMS Bulwark (spelt Buwark in the instructions). The West German aircraft is UA+112 MFG3, 1960. The decals look very good except for the British roundels which have out of register red centres.

Instructions are as we've come to expect from Trumpeter with very clear drawings for parts placement but with the occasional detail missed such as the colour of the instrument panels in the front two pits.

This kit is undoubtedly light years ahead of the old Frog/Revell kit but having bought Trumpeter’s Wyvern kit and seeing the detail in it, I was expecting this one to be similar.

It is not.

However, all is not lost, Revell have announced a new moulding of the same aircraft in the same scale. Now I don't expect them to provide the wing fold and they may or may not put detail in an open bomb bay but their interior detail and clear parts of late have been top notch. We will just have to wait and see.

In the meantime…

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