Introduction

The De Havilland Sea Vixen FAW 2 in 1/48th scale from AirFix has been available for a little over a year now. The AirFix offering has been quite well received by modellers and there is a review available on Aeroscale written by Rowan Baylis, a link to that review can be found at the end of this review. In this review I will be taking a look at a set of pitot tubes from Master in 1/48th scale

Contents

Master products are supplied in a Ziploc plastic bag with a pies of card stapled to the top with the company name it and to serve as a card hanger. Inside the bag is a card stiffener, a re-sealable plastic bag which contains the model product. In this case there is a paper insert in the rear of the packaging which provides the minimal instructions required for the use of this product.

Review

These turned brass pitot tubes from Master replace the pitot tubes near the end of each wing. These pitot tubes are direct replacements for parts 21C supplied with the model. You will need to drill a 0.5mm hole in the centre of parts 72C and 73 C, you then use super glue to secure the brass pitot tubes into the holes you have made. These parts then attach directly to the model as indicated in the instruction.

One thing you will notice with this product is that the pitot tubes from Master are quite a bit shorter than the plastic parts in the kit.
The plastic parts are;
32.22mm long
0.44mm at the thinnest point
1.09mm at the thickest end

The replacement brass pitot tubes are;
25mm long
0.35mm at the thinnest end
0.85mm at the thickest end

So is it worth the added expense for these pitot tubes? In my opinion the answer to that question is yes. For starters they require no clean-up, where as one complaint I have about the model is the large gates between the sprues and the parts, this means parts that have a thin profile are partially enveloped by the plastic making up the gate. The result of this is clearly visible in the images of the plastic parts which will be a pain to clean up. I am not in a position to say if Master got their dimensions right and AirFix got it wrong as I cannot find the dimensions of these parts.

Conclusion

The low price of these pitot tubes from Master does make this a desired replacement in my books, I also like the fact that unlike the plastic offerings they will be harder to damage or knock off than the plastic parts. The look of the brass parts will be an improvement due to the cleanliness of the lines and precise termination. The only possible down side to the product is the difference in dimensions and my inability to verify the correct sizes.

Related Reviews

De Havilland Sea Vixen FAW.2 Review Live links