kit review
building report

The Fokker F-27 Friendship was the most successfull commuter regional airliner built after 1945. Designed with a modern fuselage and wing using modern manufacturing techniques such as glued sandwich panels and equipped with turboprops, the aircraft was efficient, easy to maintain and reliable.
It flew in all continents and was flying from sand strips out in Africa. Many are still in use today.

Many commercial airlines and airforces used the F-27 with a number of variants. 
Look here for some real aircraft pictures on my site...
 

When using the Airfix F-27 model as the kit to start with, the fuselage extensions are for the other variants as follows:

1/72 fuselage extensions relative to the (short fuselage) Airfix F-27 model:
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      F-27 200 /300 /400         mk.500     Fokker 50   Fokker 60
fwd of wing:        OK              14 mm    14 mm          28 mm
aft  of wing:        OK                7 mm      7 mm          15 mm
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When you want to build the mark F-27-500, you have to lengthen the fuselage by 14 mm in front and 7 mm aft of the wing, so a total of 21 mm in 1/72. This is seen in the model picture of the fuselage. 
 

All the windows were enlarged and reshaped with a file and set a bit higher in the process. 
It is noted that on some planes, depending on the customer, not all windows are always set in the fuselage. For military troopships, they even differ per particular plane.

The cockpit glazing has a terrible fit, so assemble and fit/fill as needed with carefull sanding. 

The doors vary in size as well depending on the particular plane. On many planes larger cargo doors were fitted and regular height passenger entry doors. 

The dorsal fin (fwd of the vertical tail) is also not large enough. It should be "twice as high" at the fin-vertical tail junction. The length is correct. Use card and filler here. Add also the two stabilizer actuator fairings at the base of the vertical tail, these are missing in the kit.

The wing surfaces are separate parts, which is quite good as there are slots and gaps on the real thing for both the F-27 and Fokker 50/60. You will need to make some small corrections here.
The wing-fuselage fairing aft of the wing trailing edge is "missing", so make one with some card and putty.
Also the wing leading edge landing light is often fitted and sitting behind a transparant curved leading edge panel. Also add the tip anti-collision lights.

The wing-fuselage junction fit is very weak; it is strongly advised to add a metal spar here in the model. 

The engine nacelles can be detailed with the wheel bay details and the missing smaller intakes and flush aerodynamic exhausts. The newer F-27 versions sometimes do not have the heat panels cool ribs (as in kit). 

The kit's main undercarriage parts need refinement and the  leg should be somewhat longer.  You can add some 4 mm card in the main bay to get a better result and "higher sit" on the ground.
Replace the doors with some thin card parts, they are rather thick.

More detail information on the Airfix models issued and other F-27 kits like ESCI and REVELL can be found here....
 

Several F-27's were (retro-)fitted with the radar nose, so add this as desired by lengthening in this 1/72 scale the nose 6 mm. The older Airfix model made has no radar nose. (NOTE: Summer 2009 the Airfix kit was re-issued with also optional parts for the radarnose and other props as well).  . 

The wingtips and the aileron hinges were given some extra details as well:

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Also, the shape of the oval windows needs improvement as they are to large and in the wrong position. 

Further suggestions:
- add static dischargers on wing tips
- add 3 small drains below nacelle
- only very old aircraft have the long antenne wire
- add pitot tubes and windscreen wipers
- add anti collision lights and sometime a wing leading edge beamlight
- antenna's to be added depending on plane
 

The model depicts a F-27-200 of the Royal Netherlands AF without radar nose but with high-visibility painting. Nice touches are the walkways and the added squadron markings

References:
MIP Modelbouw in plastic, IPMS Nederland, 1993/4, written by Meindert de Vreeze and Bas Damen

Back to Model pictures.......
 

Part 1  [60 KB]

Part 2 [84 KB]

Print out the two parts 
- Check out scale: wing span should be 29.00 m for all versions, so that's 40,3 cm in 1/72 scale 
- Enlarge/reduce as needed to get the exact scale 

(c) Copyright    Meindert de Vreeze

updated July 2009