The SAAF Forum

Hi,

I found this while looking to spend some money yesterday:

http://www.wonderlandmodels.com/product ... 6k-impala/

Naturally I have one ... or two ... on order

Gary

Italeri's product site has sprue shots and a picture of the six decal versions, two of which are SAAF

Nice to have the old, but good ESCI kit Impala Mk.II kit back on the shelves. The decal sheet looks nice from what I see on line, Italeri could have done something for the cockpit though. They could have added a few more items for under the wing, like the rocket pods we used and some bombs?
Perhaps Scaleworx can produce a kit to spruce up this kit with parts that are already in existence? Hint, hint, already in the works?
Did the SAAF ever put those pea shooters on the Mk.II wings, seeing it had the 30mm fuselage mounted cannons?

Woohoo!

Glad I sold my ESCI one earlier for £35! Going to get at least one of these!

Awesome!

_________________
EX ALTO VINCIMUS

No 12,7mm under Mk 2 wings.
The pods were modified to carry tactical recce equipment, e.g. 'fan packs'.

The Impala Mk II used the 12.7mm gun pods for training until 1983 as the .50's were much cheaper than 30mm rounds. Around 1983 the .50 Brownings were fairly worn out and caused too many stopages so training on MK II's were done after 1983 with 30 mm rounds. Mk I's still used the .50 for some time there after during training. The gun pods were still used on MK II's to balance the weight and drag of the photo pod which was similar in shape. Sometimes the F2 pod was used for the same purpose. The larger rocket pod as supplied with the Esci kit was almost never used on Impala aircraft but was used on Mirage F1 and Buccaneers. The kit's rocket pods are over scale and more accurate pods are available in the Eduard Mirage. Hope this helps with the Impalas.
Joker

For those who want to arm their Imp with the rocket pods, there is an article on the IPMSSA site under "Building the Impala in scale" which shows how to modify the gun pods to the correct size for the rocket pods (page 4 of the article)

Good spotting Gajman!

I've been after the Impala for some time now & thanks to Vlamgat16 I now have one of the ESCI's. With this Italeri rerelease I will certainly be looking for more but I will be looking at other suppliers with better postage rates when they become available in August

They generally have very good prices at Wonderland and the 20% VAT is excluded for non EEC orders - just need to watch out for their postage rates!

I've bought from Wonderland once - they charged GBP15 flat rate per kit - which was fine at the time for a large kit which was heavily discounted ie c-130

Subsequently tried to purchase smaller kits but they wanted to apply same rate for each kit, so be careful here, consequently have never bought from them again!

After seeing your post yesterday had another look at their website & placed order without paying for three kits - it shows the postage at GBP 15.00 for all at this point but I suspect once the order is finalised they will charge GBP45.00 which is way to expensive - the post office rate starts at about GBP4.50 for a smaller kits and I have had three average size kits sent from another UK supplier in the past 6 months for only GBP12.00

From my importing experience UK suppliers generally have the best Italeri prices(same applies to Airfix) because of the VAT exclusion and the Royal Post rates are reasonable, occasionally Hong Kong or China come up with a deal but it always comes down to postage!

But then in RSA you still have to deal with Customs ..... Argh!

That's my two cents worth!

Yip, the parts are ready for this. Just havent done the new instruction sheet yet. It is great that this gem of a kit is available again!

Cheers
John

Hi Vlamgat 16,
the rocket pod build on the IPMS website is quite old and not too accurate. I myself went thru a couple of builds of Matra F2 pods on Impala models mostly based on look and build. Eventually I went to the Matra website and found the dimensions of the F2 pod there. Sometimes we miss the easy and obvious. All my builds were grossly over scale. The diameter in 1/48 is only about 5mm. When delivered these pods were painted in French colors of light green, sand and dark grey. As they went thru a major service they were painted in light blue and dark green. The config on the new Italeri box top artwork is not accurate and I don't think possible. The ILS antenna on the fin was also not fitted to SAAF Impalas. The most common Impala Mk II operational and training config was four F2 pods and two droptanks. The tanks can only go on the middle stations. Because of the small size of the Impala aircraft Mk 81 bombs were mostly carried instead of Mk 82's. Hope this helps with future builds.
Joker

Hey John, long time no hear!!! Get cracking on that 48 scale Imp upgrade... How is the Caravan coming along?

Hi Joker - thanks for the information. It's really helpful to prevent inaccurate builds. Very interesting re the Mk 81 bombs! Hopefully I can find some somewhere in the spares box..or online! As for the F2 pods, I wont be following the IPMSSA "instructions" !!

Yeah, saw the ILS antenna on the box art...pity that manufacturers dont take just a little more care on what they put on the box. One good thing about Italeri is that they use Cartograph to make their decals so a plus their.

For better bombs, rocket pods, etc. see viewtopic.php?f=19&t=4806

Hi Gary,

Good to be back. Dont hold your breath for the Caravan... starting a fulltime job next month.

Cheers
John

For anyone wishing to build a F2 pod ,the dimensions according to Jane's Air Launched Weapons are as follows. Length 1.45m and diam 246 mm. Hope it is useful.
Joker