Thursday 30 May 2013

Vulcan!

The Vulcan bomber has always interested me greatly, and since I am gearing up to run a few Falklands games, I figured the time was right to purchase one - especially since there was a very nice diecast one sitting at one of the local model shops.

I purchased this Adult Collectible from Play Concepts....
 On a more serious note, the staff at Play Concepts are very friendly and helpful and their prices are very good - I have been picking up 1/144 Academy kits for around NZ$6 - NZ$8 a kit! Needless to say, I will be going back as they are very local to me, have great prices, and are very friendly.

Blurry photos are a house specialty!
The die cast is a very hefty model of the Arvo Vulcan Bomber that was to have been the primary for the first Black Buck raid on the Falklands. (For more information on the Vulcan click here, and more information on the Black Buck raids, click here)

A  not-quite-final layer before I got my mitts on the Vulcan!

Under the box lid there still remained a protective plastic cover separating me from my Vulcan! Fortunately, I had the wit and means to deal with this obstacle. Of course under the plastic cover, a sheet of plastic was layered over the model to protect the paintwork.


One last layer!


RAF Vulcans visited New Zealand several times in the 1950s,'60s, and '70s. Footage of the 1956 visit can be seen here. My Father saw one of the Vulcans flying around NZ while he worked as a linesman for the New Zealand Post Office. He was up a telephone pole at the time and said that he got a very good view of the aircraft from up the pole!

One visiting Vulcan had its RAF roundrel replaced with the RNZAF roundrel - which looks rather good on it! More details can be found here, and more pictures can be found here.


Even a 1/144 scale 'Tin Triangle' is quite large!

And it is quite heavy, but then there is a lot of  model aircraft  here!

I thought that I should also do some comparision shots with one of the Pucaras. As you can see, the Vulcan is much bigger!

Two rather different bombers!

The Vulcan is massive!
For those interested, South Atlantic War gives the CA stats for the Vulcan as Punishment 7, Ordnance 21 and a SAM mod. of -1. If only one aircraft is used - such as was historically during the Black Buck raids -, ordnance drops to 5. So even a single Vulcan can ruin your day in CD! Still, better than being on the wrong end of a tactical nuke!

7 comments:

  1. very nice! you gotta' lova' Vulcan! anyway I am sure it would look good with a Kiwi in the centre, and I can also imagine that it would be the worse possible thing to have flying over your head if it meant to do you harm. looking good and I cannot wait to see what cruel hell this thing unleashes.

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    1. Painting Kiwis on to things that aren't yours is a proud NZ tradition apparently... As for being underneath a Vulcan flying low - I think it would be amazing - as long as it was not fulfilling its designed purpose!

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    2. might want to rethink that... one of the other videos that came up after the Vulcan near crash clip Dylan posted was one where a low flying Vulcan set off a all the car alarms in the vicinity... so perhaps take some ear muffs.

      and yes you kiwi's are great at putting kiwi's on thing. just like the army base in England where you carved a kiwi into the chalk hill. that base was near to where I live and we used to drive past it many times. never saw the kiwi I am afraid :-(

      and BTW if I talk to someone and they don't understand that the Vulcan is not something out of star trek do I ask for one to be flown low, very low over their house?

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    3. Might be a bit hard to arrange since there is only one left in flying condition and believe that it has limits on what conditions it can fly under.

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  2. And don't forget the Vulcan near-crash landing at Wellington airport!

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3iMw7Q7H68

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    1. Hi Dylan,
      That was quite a neat clip - Thanks for posting it!

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  3. Dunno, Brian... That last picture looked a little bit wrong...

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