1:48 Gloster Meteor NF.14 - Under Carriage Bays (for Sword Kits)

A night hunter with radar in the nose

The NF.14 closed the development line of the two-seat night Meteors. It was built by the Armstrong Whitworth firm and compared with the older night versions it was told apart mainly by its cockpit canopy: instead of a heavily framed structure it received a one-piece blown canopy, under which the crew had an incomparably better view. The lengthened nose concealed the radar; the wing stayed long, after the pattern of the early Meteors. The Royal Air Force watched the night sky with it until the end of the 1950s, after which the surviving machines finished their service as navigation trainers.

What is inside the envelope

The cuts cover both spaces in the engine nacelles as well as the nose bay, and they reckon with the surfaces that are visible from outside once the doors are closed. The shapes follow the outlines of the casting named in the name, so nothing has to be adjusted to size.

Step-by-step procedure

• Spray the inside of the bays and let it rest overnight.
• Lay the film on by one edge first and only then seat the rest.
• Run a blunt tool along the edges, so that no gap is left anywhere.
• Spray the upper shade at lower pressure; the mist then does not get under the cut.
• Once it is off, even the edge out with a fine brush if paint has seeped through anywhere.

The two-seat night versions were surprisingly large aircraft for their day, and you will know their silhouette by the elongated nose and by the span inherited from the first batches. Next to the single-seat machines they look unusually robust on the shelf.

This is the masking films alone in 1:48 scale. The kit and the painting materials are obtained separately.