get spotted. I used Xtracolor X135 Gloss
Dark Compass Grey on both fuselage and
lift engines. This was followed by Gloss
Orange Humbrol 18, as recommended by
A&A, covering the relevant areas. Next, I
masked of the orange areas and airbrushed
Xtracolor X142 Aluminium overall, later
masking selected areas again to give some
metallic contrast using Xtracolor X252
Weissaluminium. The rear sections of the
wing-tip pods were masked of in order to
spray Humbrol 27003 Polished Steel and
masked again to spray Humbrol 27004
Gunmetal for the rearmost sections. The
decals were straightforward; very thin,
without adhesion problems, and they
responded well to settling potions, although
I played safe with a couple of coats of hand
brushed Klear irst. With a prototype as the
subject, D-9518 is the only option on A&A’s
decal sheet. Fitting the engine pods to the
wingtips was going to be virtually the last
throw, given that the wingtips were proving
to be an easy handspan. However, I noticed
the it wasn’t good, the mounting discs
being too large and requiring reduction.
So, inal assembly began with the
main undercarriage. The gear doors inner
surfaces were already hand painted, and
I had included the outer surfaces in my
airbrush session, and so I thought that
this would be a doddle. Unfortunately,
there were several issues. Firstly, there
was nothing on A&A’s guide sheet to show
how to align the gear legs, viewed in front
elevation. Secondly, A&A’s drawing shows
an incorrect attachment point for the leg
ends of the retraction struts E4 and E23
- there is a small nub halfway along each
main support arm, underneath, and the
strut should be attached there, not to the
‘loating’ gear leg. You will need image
reference to get the leg alignment correct.
In essence, the legs were rather splayed
apart, but it’s advisable to err on the
conservative side because with the weight
of the model the legs splay out even more.
In truth, the styrene used by A&A doesn’t
lend itself to the VJ 101’s rather minimal
undercarriage design. Please do not use
my model as a guide as I’m pretty sure the
amount of splay is overly done, especially
with the model at rest, although perhaps
in the full-size this also increased with the
full weight of the aircraft on its wheels.
I actually fear an undercarriage collapse
at some point in the future. All that was
left now was the rest of the undercarriage
components, and the top and bottom
hatches for the fuselage engines. I couldn’t
see how the retraction jacks E4 and E23 for
the main gear doors were going to it in a
realistic fashion, so I omitted them. The
jacks E24 for the air dam need shortening.
Be advised that the canopy of the X-2
was hinged to port, not hinged behind
in clamshell style, as A&A suggest. The
long nose probe was added at the paint
stage, with sheer belief as much as styrene
cement, but it held, in spite of only a touch
it. The probe on my own model should show
a slightly greater nose down alignment.
The boarding ladder, in plastic not etch,
is desperately fragile, and needs to be left
on the runner to irst perform as much
clean-up as possible. I painted this yellow.
In conclusion, lifting the lid on
this kit promised very much indeed,
it just didn’t look like a short-run kit.
Unfortunately, the promise was not quite
realised, and the build conirmed some
of the usual issues with such kits. This is
most certainly not a kit for a beginner,
but it does represent fascinating subject
matter, and much of the diiculty can be
avoided by closing up the engine pods.KIT REVIEWS
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