Overview
The Avro Vulcan was the last of the British V-Bombers, and its distinctive appearance made it quite popular at air shows. While designed to deliver nuclear weapons, its entry into combat actually involved conventional stores. When Argentina decided to take the Falkland Islands in 1982, part of the British response was to sortie Vulcan bombers out of Ascension Island to crater the runway at Port Stanley and to use AGM-45 Shrike missiles against radar targets. While the actual damage done was minimal, the psychological effect was immense, and the Vulcan missions forced the Argentine military to reposition forces to counter the threat.
The Kit
This is the second release of the Cyber-hobby 1/200 Avro Vulcan, and this time around it's set up for a Falkland Islands bird. Molded in light gray plastic, the kit also comes with a small sprue of clear parts, optional parts for an earlier variant (marked not for use), and interesting decals for two aircraft options.
The construction of the kit is somewhat interesting, as the entire aircraft is split into an upper half and a lower half. This makes sense, as it is in essence just a big wing. There is a separate insert for the bomb bay, which allows for alternate versions (the other option has the cutout for the Blue Steel standoff missile, which is provided in the kit as an option marked not for use). The leading edge and trailing edge are incorporated into the upper wing half, which puts the seams for filling on the underside of the model. This helps in the finishing of the kit, as there are no curves or sharp edges to deal with in sanding the seams.
The underside of the kit comes with the option of retracted or extended landing gear, with the raised gear option providing the gear doors as a single piece inserted into the wheel well opening. This is another piece of nice engineering, as it will make it much simpler in building the kit gear up. For the gear down option, the landing gear is nicely detailed and features separate wheels. While remaining on the underside, this kit comes with the stores used for the Black Buck missions, (AGM-45 Shrikes under one wing, and an ECM pod under the other). With the gluing together of the air intake pieces, the main fuselage/wing assembly can be put together.
With the main assembly together, the rest of the build is very simple. There are two choices of vertical fins, again to cover different variants. The cockpit is covered with a clear canopy, while the refueling probe is separate. The canopy is small, but covers the whole 'bubble', which is nice. However, masking it off will be a bit of a challenge. There are also various antenna bits to add around the nose. With all that in place, all that's left is to paint this one up.
The painting options cover the two styles of camouflage worn by Vulcans in the 1980s. The first option is an aircraft from 27 Squadron and features a wraparound camouflage consisting of green and gray. The second option is from 44 Squadron and has the green and gray upper surface camouflage, with extra dark sea gray undersurfaces. The decals are nicely printed and provide national markings as well as the individual aircraft and squadron markings. A handful of stencil decals are also provided.
Conclusion
For such an iconic aircraft, it's surprising that there's not more models of the Avro Vulcan. This is the only 1/200 kit that I know of, and while I would have liked to have seen it a bit larger in 1/144 scale (to fit in with the big range of other British aircraft available in that scale), this is still a nice little model that will build up into a great replica of the Vulcan. My thanks to Dragon Models USA for the review sample.