Revell 1/72 Fairey Gannet T.5

If you hear me whistling the tune of "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire," don't think I'm getting a jump on the next Yuletide season. I'm not thinking Christmas at all. My humming of the tune is really just a mantra to the Gods; both a prayer and a wish for the fate that should befall Revell Germany's Gannet AS.1/4 kit. You see, despite coming in the new-style blue pinstripe box, and having a copyright of 1997, this kit is not what it appears. It is, in fact, one very large chestnut.

The Gannet:

Some aircraft are not particularly popular in the scale modelling world. One of those appears to be the Fairey Gannet. Looking at this airplane, it isn't hard to see why. The Gannet is a singularly lumpy and heavy looking plane with a weird bent wing, a severe fin-fetish and a jowl that would make Boss Hogg look like Charles Atlas (boy, Adam, you're dating yourself with both parts of that comparison! ed.). Designed in the late forties, the Gannet was intended as a shipboard antisubmarine platform for the Royal Navy. It was powered by the coupled Double Mamba turboprop, which was set up such that each of the individual engines drove one of the counter-rotating props. For takeoff and acceleration both would be used, but during cruising one would be shut down, with its attendant prop feathered. The arrangement, despite being unorthodox, worked well. The Gannet was produced in several versions, and Germany, Australia and Indonesia were export customers.

Due to the plane's role, it had to accommodate a crew of three, two engines, a search radar and a weapons bay. This led to the plane being quite bloated and heavy looking. It was decided that a dedicated training aircraft was needed, and the Gannet T.2 was adapted for the role. However, some T.5 trainers were also made - these aircraft included more powerful engines than the earlier marks, and were used predominantly by the Royal Navy.

The Kit:

This kit is one of the biggest lies perpetrated on the unsuspecting modeller in some time. Despite looking like a new mould, this Revell Germany kit is nothing other than yet another pressing of the old (and now very tired) FROG moulds from the late 1950s. A quick inspection of the kit proves this: The runners aren't of the kind you now find - i.e., framed around the outside; rather, there are some trees with parts on them. The kit is moulded in white, and resembles a pound of shortening that was crudely fashioned in the shape of a plane as some sort of cosmic joke.

Ironically, the transparencies are actually very good, and fit on quite well. In this respect, the transparencies are unlike anything else in the kit. The rest of the pieces are quite crude, and the fit is less than exemplary on most of them. The major subassemblies, like the wings, fuselage and props/spinners, are heavy on flash and most of them are warped. The plastic is very soft, however, so bending them back into shape isn't that big a problem.

Perhaps the weirdest part of the kit, and that feature most indicative of its age, is the pilot "figures" included with the kit. The Gannet's three crewmen are given to you as nothing more than heads sticking out of the 'cockpit.' The cockpit consists of NOTHING! It's like there's a barber's sheet that goes over the crew's heads and is bolted to the cockpit rails. There are no seats, no controls, no instrument panel and nothing like the traditional 'tub' in the cockpit. Heck, even the FROG Uhu had more that this kit!

Building the Gannet:

The Gannet can be built wheels up or down, which is a good thing since the landing gear on the kit are the absolute worst pieces of sprue I have ever seen. They are misshapen, soft, flash-covered and only vaguely resemble the real thing. To add injury to the already long list of insults presented by this kit, there are NO WHEEL BAYS. Yes, you read that right. The wheels just plug into the bottom of the wing/nose respectively. You're instructed to paint the wheel bays aluminum to give the illusion of open bays. It's really that sad.

Of course, if you build it wheels up, you have to paint part of the underside of the wing black, because the bulk of the Gannet's main gear wheels show when retracted. Either way, the end result is very amateurish looking. However, without tons of aftermarket or scratchbuilding, there's no way around this. In addition, the holes for mounting the gear are cut into the wings and nose already, so you must fill them in if you want to go wheels up. You just have to laugh at how bad this thing is.

Actually building the kit wasn't too hard. The wings and fuselage are in halves, and some Ambroid Proweld got these assemblies together in no time. In addition, the tailplanes are one piece, so once you have the wings and body together, there's almost nothing left to do, gluing wise.

Now detailing, that's another story. The Gannet has, like all kits of its day, a lot of raised surface detail. Normally, this is easily scribed using a pin: I just follow the line and I get a nicely recessed line. Well, not this time. Because the mould is so tired, the detail is vague and wavy a lot of the time. Some dymo tape was really needed for re-etching. Surprisingly, the detail on the wings and fuselage is pretty good. However, the ailerons and elevators have a lot of detail on them that doesn't belong. I etched the ailerons before I noticed this. It took a lot of CA to cover up this mistake. There are a number of fairly well cast bumps, bulges and pimples on the Gannet's rotund hide, and this kit captures them well.

Mating the wings to the fuselage was easy for one side, and nearly impossible for the other. Significant amounts of glue where needed to force the two surfaces to liquefy and meld together. The tailplanes both fit terribly, and the nose piece seemed to be from another airplane altogether. The pins on the tailhook were cut off so that it could be inserted after, and the 'finlets' on the tailplanes were left separate for painting and decalling purposes.

Considerable sanding was required, and copious amounts of both elbow grease and CA were used in an attempt to make the Gannet appear to have been designed to fit together. Colourplace primer (from Walmart) was used at each step to check the fit and flushness of components.

One component not present in the kit was a stand. Since having the finished plane sitting wheels-up on its belly didn't really seem all that appealing, I had to go hunting for a stand. I found a spare: it is the stand from the old (mid-70's) Matchbox B-25. Seeing as the Gannet and the Mitchell are roughly equivalent in size and wingspan, the stand is perfect for the job. It turns out the stand is a much better piece of sprue than the Gannet, too!

Painting and Decalling:

Frontline Gannets were all painted in a Dark Sea Grey (sometimes Very Dark Sea Grey) and Sky paint scheme. The T.2 trainers were usually either light grey or aluminum. The T.5, however, seems to have inherited a very garish colour scheme from somewhere. All the pictures I've seen of T.5s show them in silver with orange wingtips, tail, tailplanes (but not elevators) and nose. Since this is not a scheme that graces the skies much anymore, I decided to go with that as my colour choice.

Once the building was complete, the Gannet was coated with Colourplace Grey primer and the orange was applied. I used Testors Model Master enamel 28915, Fluorescent Red, for this. The red over the brownish-grey primer gave the orangey result I was looking for. The orange was then masked with Tamiya tape and the black around the nose was put on.

The black was then covered and the rest of the plane was painted using Testors 1146 Silver from the little 7ml jar. I've never airbrushed that colour before, and was amazed at just now nicely it behaved. It's not a very metallic colour, and that made it much more suitable for this aircraft than some other metallics I've worked with.

The plane was unmasked and the pilots were painted. I did their helmets white and their shoulders Badger Southern Pacific Daylight Orange, to simulate their flotation vests. The rest of the 'cockpit' was painted black. The rear crewman was removed from his carbonite-like prison in the rear seat, since I don't think Gannet trainers usually flew with a person in this position.

Once the painting was done, the kit was coated with several coats of Future by hand. This served to take down the remaining metallic sheen, and protected the VERY delicate orange. At this point, detailing and panel lines were coloured in using a filed down 2B mechanical pencil. After that, there was another coat of future before the decals went on.

Most of the decals used come from the Gannet's own decal sheet. The RN roundels, the wing walkways and the "88" on the nose are all kit decals. They are fairly good, although they were a bit prone to fracturing. Great care was needed when moving them around. This wasn't due to age, either. The decals appear to be quite new. The kit includes markings for German and RN machines, but nothing for Australia or Indonesia.

The code numbers, "Royal Navy" script and "LM" tail code all had to be custom made. This was done using Testors custom decal set, which I got at Walmart. Two layers of each custom decal were used to ensure that they appeared solid and black. The ink from an inkjet printer doesn't always sink in well to the decal paper, so this is a good tactic to use. The end results were very impressive.

Conclusions:

The Gannet isn't a particularly beautiful plane, but it does seem to be
something of a fetish object among Royal Navy buffs. This is not a good kit of the plane, but it is the only one you're going to find for a reasonable price. With a bit of work and some imagination, it can be made to look convincing. I was pleased with the way it turned out, and am certain that there cannot be many more of this kit out there in this paint scheme.

However, this kit points out the dangers that can await any modeller. Don't let the name on the box fool you: you never know what's inside!