Scale Plastic & Rail

1/72 Gloster Meteor Mk.4 from Revell UK

1/72 Gloster Meteor Mk.4
Revell UK
Catalogue # 04658

The Gloster Meteor was Britain's first operational jet aircraft. Entering service as the Meteor F.1 in with 616 Squadron in July, 1944, they spent the rest of the year acting as anti-V1 flying bomb aircraft and practicing new jet fighter tactics. The Meteor F.3 model, with longer engine nacelles and more powerful engines, arrived in December 1944 and in mid-January the squadron relocated to mainland Europe and subsequently saw a small amount of operational flying before the War's end.

The next variant to be produced was the Meteor F.4; this variant lasted in service from 1946 until its gradual replacement by the more potent, most famous variant, the Meteor F.8. 14 RAF squadrons were eventually equipped with the Meteor F.4, with its shorter, blunter wings, pressurised cockpit, ability to carry underwing drop tanks and Rolls-Royce Derwent 5 engines. It proved a reliable, popular aircraft in service and was also Britain's first major export success in the jet aircraft field, with aircraft being sold to Argentina, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Egypt. It also became the first jet to be seen on a regular basis in the skies over Britain (below).

Credit and copywrite: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Gloster_Meteor_F.4_VT340_Fairey_Ringway_21.07.55_edited-2.jpg

Modellers keen on the Meteor have not been wonderfully served by model companies over the years in comparison to other early jet fighters. I remember an old vacform in 1/32 scale (by which company I cannot remember) and there have been 2 announcements of models in this larger scale which have yet to appear – a Meteor F.8 from Fisher Models and a Meteor F.4 which was due from the "Wingscale" concern, of which due to legal wrangling and the demise of the company, has been long delayed but may see the light of day as a HK Models release at some point. In 1/48th scale, there was the old AMT Meteor F.1 which was poor at best, an excellent vacform Meteor F.8 from Slipstream in 1978/79, the poorly researched Tamiya Meteor F.1 with the incorrect wings and their subsequent Meteor F.3 (which was much better) and an accurate but difficult to build well trio from Classic Airframes, the Meteors F.4, F.8 and the NF.11/13, no longer in production. Finally, in 1/72nd sale, there have been very few good kits until very recently. For years, all there was were the older releases by Airfix and Frog of the F.3, F.4 and F.8 and the Matchbox NF.11/12/14, all of which left much to be desired. More recently, we have both an F.1 and F.3 from Dragon, which are the best Meteor kits in this scale. The other manufacturer who entered the market was MPM, whose Meteors F.4, T.7, F.8, FR.9 and PR.10, whilst not up to Dragon standard, are not bad at all. Xtrakit have reboxed MPM Meteors under their own banner and now Revell have done a similar thing with the MPM F.4.

As an aside, for some reason, Revell call their kit a "Mark 4". This is completely wrong; all Meteors were designated by a descriptive letter followed by a number e.g. F.8 (for fighter), NF.11 (for night fighter). Why Revell should have made such a basic mistake is perplexing.

In the typical flat section box Revell use for their smaller kits, there are 2 grey sprues, a very small transparent sprue, instruction booklet and the decal sheet. The first grey sprue (below) is dominated by the fuselage halves but also contains a large number of other pieces, including the tailplanes, fuel tanks, cockpit floor and details, nose wheel and exterior fittings. The standard of surface detailing is good, but not up to current Tamiya or Airfix 1/72nd detailing. The engraving is a little shallow in places, meaning some re-engraving may be required. The main fuselage shape accords well with my plans.

The second grey sprue (above) gives the wing halves, engine nacelle intakes, nozzles and interiors, undercarriage legs, bays and doors, the main wheels and drop tank pylons. The close-up photo of part of the sprue (below) shows the level of detailing on the parts. One annoyance is the small number of badly-placed injector marks, the worst of which is in the middle of the undercarriage bay detailing which will prove difficult to remove. The shape of the wingtips is not quite right and the trailing edges of the wings will need to be thinned down somewhat. Apart from these points, the shapes are alright. The protective intake grill, clearly visible on the nacelle front in the black and white photo seen earlier in the article, is unfortunately not provided.

The weakest part of the kit, however, is the canopy (above). It is thickly moulded, shows a little distortion in the corners and is posed closed. Normally, Revell have very good transparencies, so this is obviously a poor MPM part. A replacement vacform canopy will be sought by the serious modeller.

Finally, we have the decal sheet (below), offering 2 different high speed silver-finished aircraft:

• VZ428, 1 Squadron, RAF, Tangmere, UK, 1950
• VT106, 600 Squadron, RAuxAF, Biggin Hill, UK, 1951

The decals themselves are fine, with very good colour tone and saturation and with perfect register on my sheet. The choices are somewhat unadventurous, however, considering the wide variety of schemes and countries of use that could have been opted for.

So what we have is a good kit, with one or two annoying faults or weaknesses, but which gives the modeller by far the best 1/72 Meteor F.4 currently available. The marking schemes are a little obvious, particularly in view of the wide usage the aircraft had with several nations, but I am certain that aftermarket decal manufacturers can solve that particular problem.

So What Do We Think?
The MPM Meteor is the best kit of the F.4 variant of the aircraft in this scale and Revell's reboxing of it means a much wider availability for the model along with a lower pricing. Not without fault but will sit very well in a post-war jet collection.

A good reboxing exercise

Our thanks to Revell UK for the review sample. Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit www.revell.eu

Robin Jenkins.