Had to have the single-seat Vampire fighter version and decided to try the new Xtrakit limited edition, produced by Hannants UK and manufactured by MPM in the Czech Republic. Nice details but parts fit could have been better, also I think there are some issues with fuselage and nose shapes when compared to the real thing, in this case the ex-Finnish Air Force VA-2 on display at Finnish Aviation Museum, Vantaa. The jet intakes were definitely wrong, tried to fix them with putty and hobby knife. Don't know about the real plane, but in plastic this Xtrakit Vampire has a serious tail-sitter tendency and there isn't much room for nose weights because of the cockpit parts and deep (but also accurate) wheelbay.
The old Heller/Revell kits might have been more accurate shape-wise, but this is a modern kit however and not really that much more expensive. In theory this Xtrakit is a Mk. 5 when Finnish jets were the export version of Mk. 6, but I doubt that there are really any external differences in 1/72 scale. Update: there are some air compressor bulges near jet intakes with Mk. 6, but the intakes were modified anyway.
Airbrushed with Vallejo Acrylic Metal Color 77.701 Aluminium, which turned out nice. Aftermarket Finnish roundels with various stash decals cut out and re-assembled. Update: the Finnish Vampires had original British stencils until later overhaul and repaints in Finland. So I changed to the "Keep off" decals as the Finnish "Älä astu" (=No step) version were applied late 1950's. Also the roundels were originally without the later black outline.
I tried to keep an "old-skool" reference vibe here using just the real plane and "Suomen ilmavoimien lentokoneet 1939-72" book by Kalevi Keskinen, published by Tietoteos in 1975. Still, couldn't resist checking final facts with "de Havilland Vampire in Finnish Air Force" by Kyösti Partonen (publisher Apali, 2013, ISBN 978-952-5877-25-0), especially the nice photos taken in 1952 and 1953. I can really recommend Partonen's book if you want to build an accurate Finnish Vampire, the photos and information are excellent for scale modeling purposes
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| Finnish Air Force de Havilland Vampire, delivery markings in 1952-53 |
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| Finnish Air Force historic jet fighters, top left: Saab J35 Draken, middle: de Havilland Vampire, right: Folland Gnat |
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| VA-2 at Hatfield, UK, Dec 13th 1952 during familiarization flights |
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