I have a soft spot for Airfix kits as they are what I grew up with, and built almost exclusively as a kid. This particular specimen dates back to the 1960’s I think, and it shows! Those of you not familiar with kits of this vintage beware, as age has not been kind to these 50 + year old moulds. My example is a reissue (not the latest one with updated box art) and many of the parts/components exhibited warping. I used loads of filler on this project as can be seen from the photos via areas of lost surface detail. As is the norm for subjects of this age all panel lines and surface details are raised, albeit on this kit fairly unobtrusively. Internal detail is very limited but as the clear parts are typically thick not much can of this can be seen through the cockpits etc. Despite these negative factors this was still an enjoyable build, and I got a lot of satisfaction from overcoming the age related shortfalls. All the flying surfaces are of the moveable variety which makes for poor fit particularly on the tail surfaces. I fixed mine all in position. The undercarriage doors were particularly tricky and did not want to fit in the closed position. Plastic card and a lot of putty were necessary to fill in some big gaps in these areas.

Click on images below to see larger images

I chose to model this kit with the gear up, using the stand supplied, and the crew figures (which help fill the vast empty spaces in the various stations over the aircraft). In addition to this I attempted to create the illusion of the props spinning using clear plastic from food packaging. I’m not entirely sure this works but it was fun giving it a go J. Airfix provide 4 decal options, and 3 different nose configurations relating to the B-25 J & H variants. I chose the 8 gun solid nose over the glass or cannon armed options. The kit supplied decals were used but were generally poor, cracking up on application in some instances. The tail code serial numbers disintegrated and I didn’t try using the alternatives supplied as I suspect they would have done the same – hence no serial number!