Fairey Gannet..there is one flying!

[dromia]

The Frog Gannet was the only plastic kit available in those days, other companies have made runs since and the moulds have also produced kits for other labels.

The best Gannet kit I have ever made was the Dynavector vac-form kit in 1/48.

[1066]

Back in the 60/70's Airfix etc. were churning out loads of these models and new designs were introduced on a regular basis - does anyone know how it was actually done. I know they were injection moulded but someone must have made the master models - were the master moulds machined from steel plates or cast from hand made bits? I really haven't a clue how you would approach a job like that in the pre-digital design/cnc days.

[dromia]

My understanding is that with most of mainstream producers the patterns were made two to three times larger than the actual mould scale to help with fidelity, they were then pantographed (scaled down) for the actual mould making.

The French company Aero SA however actually engraved the moulds in scale 1/30 for their Historex figure line.

Airfix started after the war making injection moulded combs and became the biggest manufacturer of combs at the time.

[Chuck]

Looks like Revell did the Gannet kit:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Airfix+ ... 66&bih=640

Newver liked Revell, Airfix was the business.

[GeeRam]

Looks like Revell did the Gannet kit:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Airfix+ ... 66&bih=640

Newver liked Revell, Airfix was the business.

The later Revell model was a re-tooling of the original Frog model, as Revell later acquired all the old Frog tooling when they took over the company that originally bought up all the Frog tooling when Frog went out of business in 1976.

[Chuck]

Frog?? I vaguely remember that name.

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/ind ... odel-kits/

AHH FROG, comes back to me now! I made one of them balsa wood thingies.. once! http://www.houseoffrog.co.uk/senior_scale.htm

[Pete]

My first control line plane was powered by a Frog 50.

Pete

[Kungfugerbil]

My Dad was born and grew up on Helston just down the road from RNAS Culdrose. He recalled the distinctive sound of the Gannets and used to love listening to them in bed as a boy.

When he became terminally ill and knew he had a short time left, he wrote to the owners of Janet the Gannet - the one linked in the original post - and they recorded some audio for him and sent it over. At his request, we played it at his funeral. Evocative, unique sounding thing!

[Maggot]

Think it was Peter Twiss that flew the TSR2 and the aircraft may be in Cosford,
I seem to remember that the early Gannets would flame out due to fuel starvation
when catapulted off a carrier, dam unsporting behaviour.

The Westland Wyvern did that.

[Maggot]

For anyone interested in Naval aviation this old lady has just been certified

https://www.facebook.com/NavyWessex/

Seaking 597 has just been powered up for the first time.

Our lot are out and about to various displays and locations this year. The next being Duxford and Wallop at War

http://historicarmyaircraft.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/HistoricArmyAircraftFlight/

The Chippy with her spelling mistake is hopefully going to be flying next year