Sea Vixen FAW1

John Chapman
Hello! Just spotted that you have this listed as a work in progress from 2014. I hope that it all went well? On the back of that I was hoping that I could pick your brains, please? As I have both the parent kit and the Alley Cat conversion I am thinking of making this my next project, but I wonder how easily the conversion comes together and whether there are any serious issues I should be aware of before I start. Thanks!

Crispin Morton
John - the short answer is that the conversion set is excellent, assuming you are used to working with resin. Getting the join between nose and wing is the most challenging bit, but with some work and a lot of dry fitting it goes nicely in the end. The booms work really well, provided you follow the instructions to the letter (it can be a bit of an act of faith!)

I did have some issues during the build, but I am 99% certain that they were because of the way I did things rather than the kit or the Alley Cat conversion. Put it this way, I have a second kit and conversion, and one day I plan to do it again - this time as the half-black half-white test aircraft that now sits in the FAA Museum Reserve Collection.

If you want to see the longer answer, you will find the build in all its gory detail here... britmodeller.com/for..ents#comment-1835447

Have fun!

John Chapman
Superb news, and many thanks for the link to your build. I'll have to take some time to comb through that properly. I'm not super experienced with resin on this scale, just a few augmentation parts previously and not wholesale replacement of chunks of a mass market kit. However, nothing ventured nothing gained, and I have a spare kit stashed away in case it all goes fructiform. I originally bought the obs cockpit conversion because I wanted to make the Simon's Sircus option properly (XN650 was never fitted with the frangible observer's canopy, and as it was my uncle's bum that was warming the seat under it at Farnborough in '68 I felt I owed it to him) but in so doing I spotted the full FAW.1 conversion and like you couldn't resist the cleaner early shape. Whether I faff about making that a Fred's Five ship or something from a deployed squadron I will have to decide. Many thanks again.