Who knows, I may even have it done for this year’s Scale Model World, if that is not placing undue pressure on shoulders
15th June 2025
Over the years I’ve amassed a collection of favourite aircraft types that have steadfastly remained front and centre in my affections. There is of course the Harrier family, the F-15 Eagle, Spitfire, Mustang and odd german machines, all of which I have modelled many times. In addition to that list of modelled types, there are plenty of favourites that I have never touched in miniature, or that I have touched, but never finished. Part of this list is the Jaguar (now being built, finally, from the new Airfix kit) the Hercules, P-3 Orion, BAC Lightning and perhaps my favourite of all, the Blackburn Buccaneer.
I genuinely love the Buccaneer. It’s curvaceous airframe and bold styling, typifying to me aircraft design from the postwar period. Add a wraparound camouflage scheme and a bunch of underwing stores, and I can think of precious few RAF machines that are more attractive.
Over the years I’ve tried to model this aircraft if memory serves, three times: once from the Matchbox kit, once from the old Airfix 1/48 offering and once, most recently, from the second generation – or should that be third? – Airfix 1/72 release. None of these models flew over the finish line. The first ended up in the bin for reasons lost to the mists of time; the second suffered a similar fate as I decided that enough was enough and that OP Granby scheme was never going to look the way I wanted it to; and the third under my foot following a wrestling match with the Extra Dark Sea Grey finish that ended up with me on the canvass, bloodied and incapable of going on. It’s a shameful list.
Several months ago I decided to take the bull by the horns once more. I bought the new Airfix 1/48 S.2B, a few Eduard updates, a Quinta cockpit and some masking sets and set it aside, waiting of the right moment to open the box and set to work. Though that time has not yet arrived, I was yesterday injected with a much-needed shot of enthusiasm as an image of a Buccaneer, wings still flat, pylons filled with Sea Eagle missiles, was posted online. I couldn’t help but be taken by how magnificent it looked, so squirrelled it away in my must do file, ready for future reference.
As I’m writing this, I’m still not hugely confident that I will finally add this aircraft to my collection, but I can but try. With hints now appearing that ResKit are starting work on updates for the Airfix kit (including it would seem a cockpit) it looks like being sooner rather than later before aspirations step aside, to let actual work take the lead. My mind is already set on a wraparound camouflage scheme, as indeed is it, flattened wings rather than folded, but beyond that I will let the project take me where it will. Who knows, I may even have it done for this year’s Scale Model World, if that is not placing undue pressure on shoulders already burdened by a history of failure.
See you tomorrow.
SPENCER POLLARD'S KIT BOX 
I’m excited to see this one go. I always remember a shot of a Bucc I think at Lossiemouth with it’s wings folded and it’s airbrake open on the tarmac. It was in one of those 80s Air power books.
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