KITS | Vulcanmodellingguide

Vulcan Kits

1:144 GWH/Pit Road Vulcan B2 and K2

In 2012, Pit Road/Great Wall Hobby brought us the first injection moulded Vulcan in 1/144. In 2013, the kit was released with new parts for a Vulcan K2, the first (and still only) kit ever to depict this variant. The latest release by Pit Road is a Blue Steel version in anti flash white, although this can be harder to find.

The kit will certainly build into a nice looking Vulcan, but falls short in a number of areas under closer scrutiny. I'd absolutely recommend it nonetheless to any modeller with even just a few kits under their belt, I think it would also make a good starting point for 1/144 kits as it's not too fiddly despite the small scale.

If you want to convert a model to the Vulcan B1, this is the best starting point.

The primary issues with the kit can be summarised as follows:

The landing gear is too short
The wings have an odd droop that is incorrect
The nose profile is slightly off
The intake shape is incorrect, too squared off and

closer to the width of an early Vulcan B2 (XH556

and before) or Vulcan B1/1a

Canopy profile is incorrect

However, despite the kit's shortcomings in accuracy, it's still got a number of advantages that make it well worth considering over the Trumpeter kit in the same scale:

One piece seamless intakes. Intakes are often the most difficult part of a vulcan kit to get looking good due to the inevitable send, and this kit deals with that bit for you with slide moulding techniques. Unfortunately however the intakes are inaccurate.
Includes a stand.
Only Vulcan K2 kit
K2 version includes decals and parts for Falklands version as well as K2s

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Vulcan K2 box art

1:144 GWH Vulcan B2 XH535 - Rob Hayes

1:144 GWH Vulcan B2 XM599 - Rob Hayes

1:144 Trumpeter Vulcan B2

Another 1:144 Vulcan was released by Trumpeter in 2020, many of the areas that GWH got wrong, Trumpeter have got right. The intakes are much more accurate, but are moulded with the more traditional two halves approach, which can be difficult to fully eliminate seams from, the landing gear appears to be the correct length, the tailcone looks to sit correctly and the wings don't have the odd droop of GWH's kit.

However, the kit unfortunately contains a number of errors and other shortcomings:

Incorrect nose profile, too pointed
Missing lower fin on the Blue Steel Missile
Incorrect regular bomb bay doors
Incorrect radome line, similar to the old tool Airfix kit
Jetpipes that aren't correct for either Olympus 201 or 301 engined aircraft, but they are closer to 301s, and easy to modify to be more acceptable if you so wish
Difficult to make an airframe with one ECM plate as the pipes under the side of the engines are moulded to the ECM plates on both sides.
Lacklustre decals and poorly researched painting guides

The kit comes with decals for two Vulcans, both of which survive today: XL361 and XH558. The decals, although I haven't used them, don't look particularly great, so I would recommend an aftermarket decal set. Additionally, the painting guides for each airframe the kit allows you to build have a number of errors, so I would research these further.

1:144 Trumpeter Vulcan B2 with aftermarket decals and some modifications - Adam Poultney

1:200 Cyberhobby/Dragon Vulcan B2

This kit was initially released in 2011, and then again in 2016 with different decals and extra parts. Speaking from my own experience, having built three of these so far, they're a fun little kit that you can build in a weekend if you want to. There are a couple of odd errors that are easy to fix, and are slightly bigger than a 1/72 scale spitfire.

The first error, and easiest to fix, is the nose gear. The kit has too many wheels on the nose gear, two on each side, there should only be one in each side, simply shortening the axles they attach to with a hobby knife and not using the inner wheels will correct this.
The second error is an extra pitot tube on the upper left side of the nose, to correct this, simply fill the gap where it slots in.
The conventional bomb bay detailing is backwards
The final error is the blister on the tip of the nose (Terrain Following Radar or TFR for short) should not be present on some Vulcans. Remove this if the aircraft you are building did not have it (no white painted Vulcans had this).
A common place to go wrong with this kit is to install both ECM plates (the plate that goes under the engines) on aicraft where it was only on the right wing. Only about a third of Vulcan B2s had two installed, and the second was installed after they gained the camouflage scheme so white painted vulcans only ever had one. Check photos or other reference material for the aircraft you're modelling. XH558 for example only has one, under the right wing.

The first release of the kit depicts a Blue Steel Vulcan B2 of the 1960s to mid 1970s. Decals are provided for two airframes, XL321 of 617 Sqn in the all over white scheme and XM595 of 27 Sqn in camouflage in 1970- although by making some small modifications this can be backdated to 1964.

If you want XH558 in this small scale, the version of the kit you need to buy is the Falklands War version (although XH558 was not involved in the conflict). Some modifications are going to be required but they are easy ones and any modelling with a few kits under their belt should have no trouble with these.

This kit has decals for three aircraft, XM607 and XM598 in Black Buck schemes, and XH558 in the VDF/VTTS scheme. The Black BucK ones don't need any further modification than the standard corrections for this kit.

1:200 Cyberhobby Vulcans - Adam Poultney

1:72 Airfix Vulcan B2 (1983-2020 old tooling kit)

When you look at this kit, you have to consider the age of the kit and what other 1:72 V Bombers were available at the time. This was the only option for the Vulcan in the scale (aside from some vacuform kits) for many years, and still is until the new tool version is released in September 2020.

This kit has a rather bad reputation due to its age and difficulty. The hardest part of the kit is eliminating the seams on the extremely prominent intakes (particularly if the scheme you're painting has them painted white). Aftermarket resin parts are available to help with this.

The engines depicted in the kit are the Olympus 301s, but this area shows the age of the kit badly. For many airframes, these will need to be replaced with resin aftermarket Olympus 201 jetpipes.

This model features raised panel lines, on older issues of the kit, rescribing was possible, but the later versions with XH558 on the box are moulded in softer plastic that makes this difficult. Panel lines were rarely visible on vulcans, so the easiest thing to do would be to sand these almost smooth so they are barely visible. Unfortunately, the radome panel shape is incorrect, so it is best to remove this panel line anyway if the aircraft you are depicting has the black painted radome of many earlier schemes.

Options in the kit include the Blue Steel Missile and associated bomb bay, and the black buck pylons (but no shrike missiles).

In a number of ways this is one of the most accurate scale Vulcans ever made, the shape is spot on for the majority of the kit, it is just let down by its age. Many reviews and guides are online about building this kit, it is best to read them to see the best methods for making the most out of the model before attempting to build one.

To model XH558 with this kit (later reboxes of the kit only include decals for XH558) you'll need to make some modifications. Remove the TFR blister and air scoop on the tailcone, and replace the jetpipes with aftermarket sets that represent Olymus 201(/202) engines.

1:72 Airfix Vulcan (old tool) XM649 - Adam Poultney

1:96 Lindberg Vulcan B1/Prototype

This is probably the least accurate Vulcan kit to be included here, but it is also one of the oldest, having originally been tooled in 1959. It best represents the second prototype, VX777, but is more of a caricature of the aircraft than an accurate model. The kit's straight leading edge wing only appeared on seven Vulcans: VX770, VX777, XA889, XA890, XA891, XA892 and XA893.

Revell reboxed the kit in the 1980s with a fictional camouflage scheme and the final release came in 2007 from Lindberg. If you want to build this kit, look for newer ones as the plastic in the old kits is often

brittle and more difficult to work with.

One interesting and niche usage of the kit is to build a 1:32 Avro 707. The 707 was 1/3 the size of the Vulcan prototypes so the size works nicely. Some plastic tubing and a MiG 15 fuselage will be required for this extensive but impressive conversion (https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235046380-avro-707a-132-scale-kitbash/)

1:96 Lindberg Vulcan B1 XA890 - Rob Hayes

1:96 Lindberg Vulcan B1 XH507 (fictional) - Rob Hayes

1:96 Frog Vulcan B1

The Frog Vulcan is the only kit of a production Vulcan B1 ever produced, originally it was tooled in 1958- just before the Lindberg- and for its time is respectably accurate, capturing the overall shape very well and even has recessed panel lines. The intakes are a little basic and many details are quite simplified. With some effort and mods it will make a very nice model indeed.

Unfortunately the moulds were lost in the 1960s, some sources say they were lost at sea while being moved, others place them in a barn in France, some would say they were likely scrapped, but we don't know for sure what became of the moulds. Due to the rarity of the kit, mint condition ones can sell for £150-£250 and even built ones can fetch more than would be expected of such an old kit.

Until someone else fills the gap in the market, we are left without an available Vulcan B1 kit (not even in resin or vaccuform), nor one up to modern standards of detail or accuracy. With Mikromir having released a Valiant B1 and a Victor B1 in 1:144 and the quality of their kits improving significantly recently, they seem the most likely to release one and have expressed interest in doing so- but I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for this.

1:96 Frog Vulcan B1 XA891 - Rob Hayes