1/72 Matchbox Lightning F.6

Gallery Article by Justin Davenport on Aug 9 2003

 

As the Cold War dragged on through the fifties, the major powers were beginning to develop supersonic fighters.  At first, the North American F-100 Super Sabre and the Mikoyan Mig-19 led the way for fighters with Mach 1 plus speeds to fly operationally in day to day squadron service.  Later, as results from X-plane research and operational lessons began to filter to aircraft manufacturers, Mach 2 became a goal for the USAF, USN, RAF, French, Russians, and others.  Initially, the new fighters on the drawing board were designed to fly at Mach 2 plus speeds to intercept nuclear-armed bomber
fleets before they could get close to the homeland.

One of these fighters was designed by the British Aircraft Corporation and was called the Lightning.  The Lightning first flew in the mid 1950's and was about ready for squadron service when a "white paper" came out from the British government in 1957.  This paper basically said that Britain wouldn't need any more manned fighters because the threat to her homeland came from ICBM's.  Future fighter development would be canceled in favor of a nuclear armed V-bomber deterrent and SAM's.  Later events would show this decision to be very flawed.

The Lightning was spared the axe because it was just entering service.  But the white paper ensured that the Lightning would be the last indigenous RAF fighter aircraft until the Tornado.  The Lightning served the RAF, Saudi, and Kuwaiti air forces for close to 30 years.  The type was developed over the years, and always served as an interceptor (as far as I know).  The Lightning flew with a radar in its intake cone, which also served to regulate air flow into the engine, and this radar was used in conjunction with Red Top and Firestreak air to air missiles (also British made).  The Lightning had two afterburning engines mounted in a unique configuration in the tail, one atop the other, and also had overwing fuel tanks for ferry missions (due to the large landing gear wheel wells).  These were ejected if necessary by explosive cartridges.  (I personally visualized the pilots doing a roll, then hitting the jettison button.  LOL).  Early Lightnings had a round tipped tailfin, but that was changed to a square tailfin in the later versions, and the later versions also included probes for inflight refueling from Victor bombers converted to tankers. 

One squadron that operated the Lightning was 74 Squadron.  This squadron was known for its "tiger" theme, and their Lightnings carried a tiger badge on the tail.  This squadron was sent to Singapore in the late sixties to help defend the city, and they were based at RAF Tengah until 1971 when they  turned to the UK.

 

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THE MODEL
 My IPMS chapter president was holding a garage sale and I ended up walking away with a number of kits......including the Matchbox Lightning F6. The Lightning has always been a fascinating plane for me, maybe because of its unique looks. When I looked at the scheme and painting info on the back of the box I initially was attracted to the dark green scheme. However, as I kept pondering the matter, I posted my thoughts on ARC, and the more I looked at the 74 Squadron scheme, the more I liked it. I finally decided to do that scheme, with encouragement from ARC's Singapore contingent, and got lots of help from some ARC'ers with links and info about this squadron. 
 Many thanks to all of you.

 I began with the cockpit. The kit cockpit has no detail, just a plastic tub, stick, seat, and pilot. I used some cockpit pictures as a reference, and used Tamiya tape painted MM Acryl Aircraft Interior Black to provide consoles for the sides as well as some instrument panel squares. The tub itself was painted gull gray, and I painted the "bang" seat as best I could, then used Tamiya tape strips for the harnesses/belts. But very little if any of that detail is visible behind the thick canopy glass, even when dipped in Future (which I always do for all clear parts these days). I turned to rescribing the model, which has thick and obvious raised detail, but after some problems on one half of the fin, I gave up. I didn't even get to the fuselage or wings - I didn't want to put too many scratches on the bird, because they'd show up well with Alclad!!!

 After the cockpit was glued in, I glued the fuselage halves, and then made the wings. After gluing them and the elevators on, I found that some filler was needed on the wing roots and nose areas along with the nose wheel well. After I glued the nosepiece on, I found out I'd glued it the wrong way!!! That is, the spot where the long pitot tube goes would have fit on the top instead of the bottom. Ah well. I sanded down the top portion as best I could and glued the pitot tube on the bottom, it fit all right. Then I glued on the overwing fuel tanks, which turned out to be a HUGE mistake, as I'll explain in due course. Finally, I painted the frames and window sealant (not a perfect job!) and glued it onto the airframe. I got the plane ready for priming by brushing liquid mask on the entire canopy to protect it from the primer and Alclad/Tamiya metalizers.

THE PAINT JOB
Everything went well at first.  I started with gray Tamiya primer, and sanded away some imperfections I saw.  I then used Tamiya Silver Leaf - I had been impressed by its performance with the Sabre's underwing tanks and I figured "why not" - I wouldn't have to use the airbrush.  However, I was disappointed in the lack of shine - and I figured that had to be due to the undercoat.  After all, the Sabre fuel tanks were gloss black before they got the Silver Leaf treatment.  So I sprayed the Lightning gloss black.  That
went well enough.  But then came some issues.  I sprayed on the Alclad, but I used aluminum as I was out of polished aluminum.  So I masked off the areas on the aft and used Tamiya Silver Leaf on the rest of the bird after spraying the unmasked areas with gloss black.  Then I used polished aluminum on some areas.  There were a few areas where the gloss black seeped under the masking tape so I sprayed more Alclad and used SNJ in some areas.  But the areas around the overwing tanks were a serious problem (not finished well enough, and had a gritty finish), and I ended up breaking the tanks off when I took off the masking.  I finally got a decent BMF, then reglued the tanks and got to work on the landing gear and other items like missiles, which were fairly straightforward.  I used Microscale RAF roundels and kit decals for the squadron insignia, and the kit was finished all right, or so I thought!

THE MISALIGNED TANKS
One month later, I took this bird to my local IPMS meeting. To my chagrin, I took a close look and found that the tanks were seriously misaligned - one was more forward than the other! I didn't want my bird to keep looking like that, so I ended up trying to detach the tanks and pylons (which looked somewhat unsightly after having to apply lots of filler!) and ended up breaking the tanks and part of the pylon for good. So I ended up with pylon stumps which were even worse. I'd just gotten a new Dremel tool, so I used it to try to sand the surface smooth. It sanded too far and made some grooves and cuts, so I had to use lots of Tamiya putty and sanding to make the surface semi-acceptable. Now it sits on my shelf with the other 1/72nd birds, and since it's a tail sitter I'm using blue tack on the wheels to keep it down. A white metal nose cone would be great for this kit, or even a white metal nose gear or cockpit to keep the bird from putting its end to the ground. I like the Lightning better with overwing tanks but they had to go in this case.

CONCLUSION
This was an interesting project. I enjoyed it a lot, and learned a lot about the RAF's involvement in Singapore as well as about the Lightning and the missiles that it used. I liked seeing the picture of the maintenance tech standing on the Red Top like a surfer would his surfboard....the pilot fires the missile....the tech rides the Red Top down the runway at Tengah and says "Surf's up dudes!!!" :-) And the picture of the squadron with the tiger skin was cool. Many thanks, again, to all of you who provided me information, I don't remember all the names, you know who you are. As for my personal experiences with Singapore, I enjoyed a couple of layovers at Changi Airport when my family traveled overseas when I was young, and I had very good experiences on Singapore Airlines. This model is dedicated to all the fine Britons and Singaporeans who frequent ARC.

References:

Happy modeling

Justin Davenport

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Photos and text © by Justin Davenport