"The Folland Gnat." Topic

In 1:48.

"Fans of British jets will welcome the new Airfix 1:48 scale Folland Gnat, well-known as the high-speed mount for RAF aerobatic teams of the past, such as the Yellowjacks and the Red Arrows. This Gnat is a step up in size for Airfix, which already has a new-tool 1:72 scale Gnat in the range.

The Folland Gnat was a small, swept-wing British subsonic jet trainer and light fighter, the pic (below) taken at the 1957 Paris Air Show. It was developed by Folland for the RAF, and flown extensively under licence by the Indian Air Force. The design was simplified, allowing for construction by countries without a highly specialised industrial base…"

From here (including video).
link

Hope you enjoy!.

Amicalement
Armand

When I joined the RAF, a lot of the fast jet pilots were still shortarses of the 'Gnat Generation'. Anyone with average-length (or longer) femurs would find their legs amputated from the knees upon ejection, as the Gnat's cockpit was so damned small.

I remember the same being said of the Lightning: "When you bang out of a Lightning, the ejector seat will trim your legs off just below the knees. It smarts a bit, but is better than staying with the plane. So if you see a pilot about 5 feet tall, the chances are he's an ex-Lightning man…."

That's interesting (the model, not the amputations). I suppose that a Red Arrows livery is de rigueur for this machine?

Ron

Very true. The trouble with the Gnat era (mid-60s to late 70s) was that all fast jet trainee pilots, after graduating from JPs had to go through the Gnat phase before graduating onto advanced training on Hunters.

As the RAF recruits all pilots as potential fast jet pilots (helicopter and multi-engine pilots get streamed off at various points during training), they had to eliminate all pilot candidates with over-long thigh bones during the initial candidate selection phase at Biggin Hill. Thus for 10 years or so, the RAF recruited a generation of midget pilots. :)

Ron,

Yes, it invariably is, though RAF Valley's standard training paintscheme was far more typical:

There was also the Red Arrows' predecessor team; the Yellowjacks:

Glad you enjoyed it boys!. (smile).

Amicalement
Armand

Sounds like I should get 3 or 4 of those, paint one in the Red Arrows scheme, another in the Yellowjacks, and the others in the training scheme.

I'd probably start with the training scheme or Yellowjacks, just to figure out how to mask and paint plastic models again!

These also look pretty good in a bare metal finish with Indian Air Force roundels. At least, they do in 1/285th anyway….
BWW

Need the single seat fighter for India though – Airfix's obsession with the Red Arrows means their Gnat models are invariably the trainer model. As I have quite a lot of Indo-Pakistan war aircraft in 1/72 it's a major nuisance…. :-(

It sure enough is the two seater. Guess that will teach me to look more closely at the photo before I comment.

On a related note though, Dom makes excellent IAF roundels for 1/285 and 1/300 scale, although he might be too modest to admit it. The problem is, the blasted Gnat is so small that you have to buy 1/600 roundels to get them to fit on the sides of the aircraft!
BWW

BrianW its even more annoying trying to fit his excellent 1/600th decals onto TD's very nice Gnats. I know having done both Indian and Finnish ones.

Fatman

I thought the Indians used two-seater trainers in addition to the single-seat fighter variant?

That reminds me – the single-seat fighter variant seen in Tango's second photo was never used operationally by the RAF. The example shown is only a (rejected) trials aircraft (although it does have an RAF registration code – that was normal for military prototypes and trials aircraft back then).

Yes they had the trainers too, but that's not the one you want to model…. ;-)

Fatman,
Oh I can't do TD's 1/600 planes, as they are too small for me. I was whining about the Raiden 1/285 ones.
BWW