SAAF Buccaneer, No. 416, scheme at time of delivery.

Having taken an extended hiatus from active modelling duties for almost two decades, I had barely warmed up my airbrush again, when I accepted the challenge to build the so-called unbuildable. Not actively building does not equate to not collecting and so I had two of these kits lying ready in my newly furbished hobby room. Having checked out the excellent information available on this, IPMS SA site, as well as reading the book by Tim Laming on the Buccaneer I took a kit out of its box and gave it a primary inspection. I think the first thing that strikes one is the size of this beast: its is one huge piece of plastic, easily comparable to a F4 Phantom. Unfortunately the plastic also reminds one of earlier Airfix kits, a soft blue grey material with minimal detail. The area, which really screams out for attention, is the cockpit; the others are the wheel wells and the Spey turbines. Fortunately these can be corrected by the really superb Neomega  resin cockpit set as well as the photo etched set for the Buccaneer exterior made by Eduard.  Of course this means that the kit cheaply bought on sale will quickly escalate to the price of a Hasegawa F-18. In addition I purchased an aftermarket set of resin flaps, which are not really warranted and were not used in the end. Unlike my old usual self, I washed the model and resin parts with some household soap, rinsed them well and allowed them to dry thoroughly. The Neomega cockpit set is a delight, especially the ejection seats. As the Buccaneer office is basically black, I painted mine dark grey, picking out details by dry brushing with silver, white or light grey. The fit is superb and it nestles into the Airfix kit like a hand in a glove. When working with resin, take ample precautions due to its potential toxicity i.e. wash you hands regularly or wear gloves, wear a face mask when sawing or sanding and keep foodstuffs well away from any shavings – at least that is what the guidelines say. Cleaning up the workspace afterwards is easier said than done. Not really being a rivet counter I didn’t take the small differences into account between the RAF and SAAF versions as most of these would not be visible later in any case. Nor did I attempt to remove the fuse cord from the glass canopy which is absent on the SAAF aircraft, as short of moulding a new canopy this didn’t seem feasible to me.

After the cockpit was installed and sufficient lead shot was fixed into the nose I started on the rather arduous task of gluing the fuselage halves together. Previous dry fitting had shown that these were warped to some extent, but that this could largely overcome by slowly gluing it together section by section. I was so fixed on performing this task correctly that once it was finished, and I was chaffed by a clean seam which only required minimal sanding on the sides, that I discovered that I had forgotten to glue in the bomb bay doors. There are times when foreign languages come in useful – and this was one of them. Fortunately my skills in micro-manipulation had not been lost all together and I was able to salvage the situation: but it is not an exercise I would like to repeat. Next I added the Eduard PE details to the jet intakes and burners. Working with PE is a relatively new experience to me and it is not something that I relish. At least these parts are large enough that they do not end up being lost on the hobby table, floor or who knows elsewhere. They do add a nice touch and brushed a silver grey metallic do allow these otherwise gaping caverns to look more realistic. An alternative may be to use resin products ala seamless suckers: I am, however, not aware of any. The fit of the intakes and exhausts is less than adequate and it required quite a bit of Tamiya putty and sanding to achieve a smooth blend. Although the options exists to open the tail brake I found the detail here to be sadly lacking and oddly the Eduard set makes little attempt to improve upon this. For this reason I chose to portray mine in a closed position. Slight sanding of the two brake parts was needed to achieve a good fit. The fitting of this assembly to the fuselage, however, is most taxing. Indeed, after this broke off twice, I really wondered whether I would be able to complete this model. Finally, by coaxing, a lot of thick super glue and putty I was able to satisfy myself that it would hold, but it wouldn’t be pretty.

Next I attached the T tail, which was also warped and even now still displays a slight curve. Again, just something I will have to live with. The assembly of the wings was pretty straight forward, with some filling being required at the joins. I really admire those who attempt to display the wings in a folded position, especially if they elect to use the Eduard PE parts for this purpose. PE parts were also used for the wheel wells; these being especially effective in the large rear ones, where it does represent the original corrugations quite well. I have to admit that a lot of the small PE were not used as I just find them to difficult to work well with. At this stage, I let the model cure for quite a while, only pausing from my real occupation for short breaks to simulate dive bomb runs over the hobby table. The Christmas vacation provided a suitable break for its completion – and I had to as the deadline was looming. At this time I also had to finally decide upon which camouflage variant I wanted to build. As this particular Airfix kit only includes the normal and not the bulged bomb bay, the modeler is really forced to build an early variant. On the other hand, I wanted to build the most famous of all Buccaneers, No. 416, the one in which Dries Marais staved off an Angolan panzer attack on a SADF expeditionary force being airlifted by some SAAF Pumas, thereby earning a well deserved Honoris Crux (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/andrewbrooks1/marais.htm). One day it would be fun to build the SAAF Puma “Monster Wilkins” was flying at the time of this attack – any details would be appreciated. Back to the Buccaneer. For the reasons mentioned above, and because I also wanted to model a Buccaneer the way I remembered them from my child hood, I decided to build 416 in its near original livery; nice, colourful and shining, unaware of the vital role it was to play in future. At this time I also decided which stores to use and decided upon a pair of rocket packs, due to their importance later in the life of 416. I also toyed with the idea of building some AS-30 rockets, but my modified Matra Magic missiles proved to be too large.

Building the original scheme proved to be a bit more difficult than I imagined as most photos portray the later variants, and even the aircraft displayed at the War Museum in Johannesburg is really a very modified aircraft painted to resemble the early version. References that were of help here included the book by Tim Laming, photos contained in the Airfix kit instruction booklet as well as a painting in the superb book by the late Ron Belling on Aircraft over Southern Africa. Unfortunately all of Herman Potgieter’s photos are of later drab birds. These would, however, be very helpful for building a later version. Following priming with light grey Gunze acrylic paint, I sanded the offending areas down again. It was only now that I discovered that the jet intakes were white inside, so I resprayed them and picked out the PE details again with silver. Next I masked the areas along the leading edges, jet intakes etc., which were natural metal and sprayed these with Tamiya silver. This included part of the cockpit framing. It is worthwhile noting that the canopy framing is two colours on the original, so this entails quite a bit of precise masking. Next the nose was sprayed a yellow/orange that I felt approximated the original. I next sprayed the bottom of the fuselage PRU blue, mixing Gunze paints according to a mixture of gut feeling and comparison with some old Aeromaster PRU blue. It is worth noting here that although both the Shackleton and the Buccaneer were painted in a PRU blue – extra dark sea grey scheme, the shades were, according to Ron Belling, very different. Not having extensive experience with acrylic paints, and having had less than satisfactory results with the Tamiya ones, I was very impressed by the quality of the finish of the Gunze variants, which give a very smooth finish. Once dry, the model was masked again and sprayed with Gunze extra dark sea grey. The model was coated with a few light coats of Johnson’s Future floor polish and prepared for decaling. At this time I thought of using a mixture of Airfix decals as they looked fairly good, and some of the old Ken Smy SAAF springbok castle decals. Unfortunately, the Airfix decals had survived extended storage rather badly and disintegrated upon transfer into water. For this reason I only used the absolutely necessary ones e.g. bilingual ejection seat markings and left away most of the other stencils. I guess sealing them with some Future or Microscale liquid decal film may have averted this problem.  The SAAF castle decals settled down incredibly well and look marvelous. The really critical may notice that the size of the roundel on the upper wings is too small as the correct size is not on the SAAF castle sheet – perhaps I should have used some of the new 1/32 Leading Edge F-86 Sabre decals here. It is something to bear in mind for future builds.

The attachment of the weapons stores, under carriage and aerials was relatively unproblematic.  At this stage I do tend to get into a hurry to complete the thing, and so my Buccaneer still lacks its wind screen wiper. While the Airfix Buccaneer may not be a shake and bake Tamigawa kit, the completed model, despite its many faults and criticisms certainly looks very impressive and more importantly truly captures the lines of this most impressive aircraft. Who can’t imagine it, Spey engines roaring, as it hugs its way feet over the bush en route to the next target? Upon reflection I really enjoyed building this model, which turned out to be the most challenging kit I had attempted to date. Will I build another – certainly – but not in a hurry – too many other projects lined up; maybe the experience gained with this kit will help me summon up sufficient courage for more daunting tasks such as a SAAF Cheetah collection in the same scale.