Subject: Handley Page Heyford

Manufacturer: Matchbox

Constructed 1987 to 2003

The Heyford was the last biplane heavy bomber used by the RAF and it served as a front line aircraft from 1933 to 1938. Unusually, the upper wing was attached to the fuselage and heavy struts supported the lower wing which passed several feet under the lower fuselage. This placed the bomb bay, the thickened lower wing centre-section, very close to the ground for rapid re-arming. Even with a wingspan of 75 feet the aircraft was quite nimble and was looped at airshows on several occasions.

Matchbox were not noted for detail and fine panel lines but their attempts with a range of biplanes resulted in some quite desirable kits often representing subjects unavailable to the present day from any other manufacturer.

The kit consists of about 150 parts in black and two shades of green and nine transparencies and offers the choice of building a Mk.I, II or III. All the parts are free of flash and crisply moulded and the ribbed effect on the wings is well executed.

I started the kit in, wait for it, 1987! Having reached a quite advanced stage of assembly, several factors caused me to shelve the project. Since the early seventies my wife's waist-length hair had been my source of rigging 'thread'. Thanks to a 'downsizing' of hair length this was no longer available. I tried nylon fishing line on a couple of small aircraft but really couldn't get on with the stuff. Our daughter, Rebecca, had recently turned three and son, Daniel, had just arrived on the scene. Add to this a large and developing garden and a demanding job. Time for personal pursuits was, for a few years, in quite short supply. The Heyford inevitably had to take a back seat and wait for me to discover a more user-friendly rigging material.

As I write, daughter has moved in with her boyfriend's family for the holidays, son is doing his thing and demands no more than food on our family table and the odd lift with guitar and amp to friends' houses in neighboring villages and wife has announced that, after many years of hard labour, all 'jobs on the list' have been completed! (for a while!) I have time! I have coincidentally received a parcel from Aeroclub containing Stretch thread 350, a very stretchy Lycra thread, ideal for rigging. You anchor one end with c/a adhesive, thread through pre-drilled holes, pull to tension and finish with c/a. The stuff is so forgiving it's unbelievable and, unlike nylon monofilament, it has so much 'give' you can catch it and instead of coming adrift it just stretches.  Now is the time to complete the Heyford!

Construction began with the horizontally split fuselage and separate vertically split cockpit and bomb aimer's position. Everything fitted with precision. The cockpit is sparse to say the least with no floor, front bulkhead, sidewall detail or throttles. There is scope for the addition of a lot of extra detail. I didn't and now regret it. I will put the finished model on a high shelf so that nobody will see inside the 'office'!

Next came the tail surfaces, ten pieces including struts which fitted well with just a touch of filler at the fuselage/tailplane joint, and on to the engine nacelles. Just four parts to each plus exhaust manifolds that will go on after the aircraft is painted. The upper wing consists of two lower  halves and three upper sections and the fit is precise. The lower wing is assembled similarly but a bit of filler was required at the joints. The underside centre section has a large recess to which you can attach either a bomb bay with the doors to the ten bays open or a section representing doors closed. The former looked very unconvincing and the fit of the latter, which I opted for, was quite poor, requiring lots of filler and work with a file. This destroyed most of the surface detail which I replaced. At this point I added the undercarriage spats having modified the locations for the wheels so that I could drop them in after painting. Filler was needed at their wing leading edge joints. This would be very difficult if the spats were fitted after the wings were assembled to the fuselage as suggested by the instructions. There would be a large strut in the way.

The engine nacelles, which incorporate struts to the lower wing, were attached to the upper wing after dry-fitting of the lower wing to ensure that the struts would locate correctly. When the adhesive was set and the  joints with the leading edge filled, the outer interplane struts were added. Each pair is moulded in one piece, joined by a small rectangular section that sits in a groove in the underside of the upper wing. The wing was fitted to the fuselage, lower wing added, positively located by the under-nacelle struts, and four small struts clicked into place. Everything lined up nicely. Piece of cake! The addition of couple of wind-driven generators (I'm making the MkI version) and other minor bits completed the main construction.

The next task is a bit of remedial work on the filler between spats and wing - correction fluid and a light application of fine wet-and-dry, and I've just noticed a tiny sink mark on the upper surface of the upper wing.

Time for a visit to the paint shop! I use Humbrol Maskol liquid to mask single or odd-shaped transparencies. Applied by brush, which can be cleaned with warm water, it dries in a few minutes and peels off with ease after use. Do not leave it on for more than four or five days or it will develop a permanent affinity for your model. Don't even ask! The cockpit and gunners positions were filled with damp tissue. The Nivo (Night invisible varnish, Orfordness) finish is said to be represented by Humbrol 75 by the Matchbox instructions but there is much debate regarding the accuracy of this colour. It looks fine to me and I will use it.

Several airbrushed coats of Humbrol gloss varnish followed a coat of 75. The gloss finish lessens the likelihood of silvering under the decal carrier film caused by the formation of microscopic air bubbles. Applying the decals was free of drama except for a bit of cutting to the coloured bands around the wheel spats, which eventually settled down snugly with the help of several applications of Micro Sol.

After a coat of Humbrol Matt Cote (This site is sponsored by ....!), to seal everything in and give the appropriate mat finish, it was time to fix the rigging wires. Disaster! I had planned to butt join the Lycra "wires" on to the model with cyanoacrylate after painting to avoid having it sprouting a plethora of Lycra during that stage. Would c/a cure on the Matt Cote? No it would not! Even an application of gloss to the attachment areas failed to remedy the situation. Life is short, so, no more messing. This biplane will remain un-rigged until my retirement and perhaps then I will tackle the task using the time-consuming medium of stretched sprue.

So, all that remains to be done is to attach the vulnerable bits like props, engine exhausts and tailwheel, drop in the main wheels, flattened at the base as per the real thing with the weight of the aircraft, and attach the windscreen with Micro Kristal Klear which doesn't fog the plastic and dries, well, crystal clear!

The windscreen is rather chunky, with prominent, out-of-scale framing (this is Matchbox!), and a replacement made from Squadron.com transparency-forming sheet would be an improvement. You heat an oversized piece of the stuff to soften it, then pull it over the original to form a thin, vacuum-formed-like replica.