New Buccaneer S.2 - Go BIG or go home!

Welcome to this latest edition of our Workbench blog and all the news, updates and modelling exclusives from the fascinating world of Airfix.

Before we get started on this latest blog, could we please just take a moment to thank the many people who contacted us following the publication of last week’s Spitfire early design phase article, where product designer Chris Joy gave us a fascinating look behind the scenes of this significant new tooling project for Airfix and what it takes to tackle such iconic aviation subject matter. We are grateful for all the messages letting us know how much you enjoyed the feature and for the many suggestions of what you would like to see covered in future articles. We have already been in discussions with the design team and will be addressing several of these requests over the coming weeks, so please keep a lookout for these special editions of Workbench.

In this latest edition, we have more exclusive information from the design computer of one of our product designers and another of the headlining 2022 new tooling announcements. Moving aviation history forward from the Spitfire to the 1960s, this time, we will be looking at a project which has received at least as much attention as the new Spitfire and for many Workbench readers, will be the undoubted highlight of the current Airfix range, our spectacular new 1/48th scale Blackburn Buccaneer S.2. This will be a beast of a model kit and we look forward to bringing you details of how this project started to take shape and some of the many challenges our product designer had to overcome during the initial design phase. We will be seeing why the BIG ‘Banana Jet’ is set to delight modellers following its release later in the year.

Jet powered fist of the Fleet Air Arm

Computer rendered version of the CAD design files produced by Paramjit towards the end of his work on designing the new 1/48th scale Blackburn Buccaneer S.2.

When any new Airfix model range is announced, we clearly hope that each new tooling addition to the range will appeal to large numbers of modellers the world over, even though we embrace the fact that individuals will always have their own particular subject preferences and we may not always be producing kits which immediately appeal to them. Of the models which are of interest, it’s only human nature to expect people to rank them in order of preference, or perhaps even in the order in which they intend to build them, but if we were all the same, wouldn’t life be just that little bit duller?

From a Workbench perspective, there is nothing we like more than to bring our readers the latest exclusive updates from all the projects in the current range, be they exciting new tooling additions, or interesting kit reintroductions, but with so much new information to bring you, where on earth do we start? You might think that we operate something of a new project pecking order by the speed in which new tooling projects feature in our blog schedule, but this is not necessarily the case and may actually be the result of several development factors we have to take into account. With the new 1/24th scale Spitfire Mk.IXc taking star billing in last week’s blog, you could argue that many will consider this to be our headline new tooling project for 2022 and in any normal year, this would probably be true, however, from an Airfix perspective, this isn’t quite the normal year. With several projects rightly having a claim to being the most popular/interesting new tooling project of the year, the subject of this latest blog demands at least equal billing as the Spitfire, certainly if pre-order sales activity and enthusiast support are going to be our barometer. 

The Blackburn Buccaneer S.2 has the reputation of being one of the most rugged, most reliable and the most capable strike aircraft to have ever seen British military service and was possibly even considered the most capable aircraft of its type in the world. Tracing its development history back to the 1950’s and the start of a massive naval expansion programme undertaken by the Soviet Navy, the Blackburn Buccaneer was Britain’s response to meeting this potential new threat, a powerful, yet cost effective aviation deterrent. Russia’s intention to introduce large numbers of new Sverdlov Class Cruisers into service alarmed the Royal Navy, who were concerned that they were not equipped to mount an effective defence against this new threat using their existing force alone. Simple economics dictated that Britain would not be in a position to undertake a similar expansion programme to counter the Soviets, so it was quickly decided that a capable new naval strike aircraft would be the answer, one able to operate from existing carriers, but one which possessed the ability to detect and destroy the new Soviet vessels. 

One of the most powerful aircraft to have ever operated from the deck of a British aircraft carrier, the Blackburn Buccaneer will be a hugely popular addition to the Airfix kit line-up in 2022.

The aircraft would be the first of its type to be developed from the outset as an ‘under radar’ design and would need to provide excellent performance at low altitudes, as well as the capability to deliver nuclear munitions onto target, should that be required. These demanding specifications would place extreme demands on any aircraft design, however, the new jet would need to achieve all this whilst operating from the decks of one of Britain’s relatively small aircraft carriers, so clearly, this was going to have to be a very special aeroplane indeed. Developed under a cloak of international secrecy, the favoured design was submitted by famous British naval aircraft manufacturer Blackburn and was referred to as the Blackburn Advanced Naval Aircraft (BANA), an acronym which would remain with the aircraft throughout its service life, as it inherited the somewhat predictable nickname of the ‘Banana Jet’. Having said that, the appearance of the jet’s generous, curving fuselage certainly possessed more than a passing resemblance to a banana.

The new aircraft was packed with all the latest technological innovations, with its designers having to utilise manufacturing techniques which had never previously been used on a British built aircraft, so the big question for Workbench readers is, how would the task of representing this mighty beast of an aeroplane as a 1/48th scale Airfix kit similarly challenge one of our experienced product designers? That is the question we put to Paramjit Sembhi, as we asked him to recount some of the many months of work he invested in this spectacular new project.

A design journey from Mosquito to Buccaneer

Paramjit’s research files included scan data produced to support the 2019 release of a new model tooling project in 1/72nd scale.

As the star of many a TV series, YouTube video and online hobby feature, Airfix Senior Product Designer Paramjit Sembhi will probably be quite familiar to Workbench readers by now, not only because he has also featured in several of our previous new tooling designer interviews. His previous appearance (other than several of the model builds we have used as part of our development updates) was as he talked us through his 1/72nd scale de Havilland Mosquito project last year, however, his latest project would be his largest and most demanding he had led to date. 

Despite the fact that a Buccaneer (well, in actual fact a Blackburn N.A 39 development aircraft) kit has been part of the Airfix tooling bank since 1960, this magnificent aircraft has continued to be a popular subject with modellers ever since, with this original model joined by a new Buccaneer tooling in the same scale in 1989 and eventually replaced with a new, CAD designed kit in 2019. When this particular model was released, it delighted Buccaneer fans and proved to be a hugely popular addition to the range, a fitting tribute to this capable strike jet. The only slightly wistful thing people were heard to say about the new kit’s development was wouldn’t it have been great if it had been produced in 1/48th scale?

Airfix did tool up for a 1/48th scale Buccaneer in 1994, however, this kit reflected the state of plastic kit design and manufacturing expertise at that time, and with the level of detail in the new 1/72nd scale Buccaneer far outstripping that of the existing larger scale option, the Airfix team were excited to be finally bringing thousands of modellers what they had been hoping for.

We began our interview with Paramjit by asking him about when he started the Buccaneer project and where it stood in his design history? He told us that he first opened his Buccaneer project files in June 2020, after he had completed the design phase of the 1/72nd scale Mosquito and how this represented a significant new challenge for him in his Airfix career. The Buccaneer was the first 1/48th scale design project he had embarked upon and as such, he was excited to be taking this next step in his career. He did admit to having some initial trepidations, not least of which centred around the fact that he was only too aware that modellers had been requesting this new kit from Airfix for at least ten years and he wanted to do it justice and produce something that he and the company would be proud of and that modellers would enjoy building. Importantly for him, he had plenty of ideas he wanted to incorporate into the new design right from minute one and he couldn’t wait to get started.

What information did you have access to at the start of the project?

Paramjit informed us that thanks to the work previously completed on the 1/72nd scale Buccaneer project, he had an absolute wealth of research information available to him, including scan data and even skeleton model design, work which had taken his colleague Matt many weeks of hard design work to complete. Even though this would prove incredibly useful in the weeks ahead, particularly when checking his shape designs against both the scan and skeleton information, there was one rather sizable issue, they were all in the wrong scale.

This brought us to the fascinating subject of ‘upscaling’ and more detail supplied by Paramjit. To the lay person, if CAD design files exist for a particular project in 1/72nd scale, wouldn’t the design process for the same subject in a larger scale simply be a mathematical exercise of scaling everything up to the required level? Paramjit confirmed that unfortunately for Airfix product designers, it isn’t quite as simple as that and in most cases, it really is like starting a project anew, just with a little extra design references to help you. The software is capable of upscaling the design files from 1/72nd scale to 1/48th scale, but the process would increase every facet of the design, increasing wall and part thicknesses in the process and leaving the new design looking extremely light on detail.

A graphic illustration of Paramjit’s Buccaneer ‘upscaling’ work. Behind the unmistakable shape of this distinctive aircraft, each one of these cross-section sketches will be requiring Paramjit’s design attentions, as he re-scales thicknesses and adds lots of additional detail.

In simple terms, the larger the scale, the bigger individual parts will be and this can be a significant problem when it comes to tooling and the manufacturing process. Working with minimum part thicknesses, if these component parts are too big, they will not manufacture correctly and will ‘sink’. This term means that during the plastic injection process, the part is so large/thick that sections of it will not cool quickly enough during production and as a consequence, will not form correctly, clearly something the designer just could not have. 

In order to combat such an occurrence, when ‘upscaling’, the designer has to take the original skeleton model and re-work it extensively, opening up all the cross-section sketches, or station points and completely re-designing them, scaling back the thickness increase, breaking the larger parts into separate pieces and adding lots more detail to the design. Paramjit told us that in the case of the Buccaneer project, his work adjusting the original skeleton model took him around five weeks to complete and it would have taken longer were it not for his experience in knowing what to look for, when it came to potential future problems.

A simple upscale increases the wall thicknesses of individual components beyond what is acceptable or desirable, so to maintain the scale realism of the new kit, each individual section has to be adjusted down again manually, which as you may well imagine, can be a long and arduous process. Paramjit told us that in some cases, you really do have to question whether starting all over again would not be the best course of action in such cases, especially if the original design files are now a few years old. He said, “As time goes on, a designer will obviously develop new skills, gain greater experience and learn how to take advantage of all the latest industry techniques. They will want to incorporate all these benefits into their latest project, so starting anew with an upscale design has to be an option for them at that stage”.

Thankfully for him, in the case of the new Buccaneer, the design files Paramjit inherited from his colleague Matt were excellent and with the shape of the aircraft being so incredibly complicated to replicate, this detail proved to be a real asset during this stage of the design process.  

We went on to ask Paramjit if he had enjoyed the undoubted pleasure of inspecting a preserved Buccaneer during the design phase of the process?

An advanced aviation design, the impressive Buccaneer provided plenty of design challenges for Paramjit, but his work will result in a fantastic new addition to the Airfix kit range.

Paramjit told us that the Buccaneer project took place almost in its entirety during the period of restrictions the nation has been following and as a consequence, he has not yet had the pleasure of being acquainted with a full sized aircraft. In some ways, the fact that he was unable to obtain information about the aircraft in person as would usually be the case, the Buccaneer actually turned out to be something of the perfect lockdown project, by virtue of the fact that the Airfix research bank was so full of information and existing scan and design information had only been produced over the past couple of years. The inability to visit a preserved aircraft also had its drawbacks, but we will come to those a little later.

Now for our most in-depth and thought provoking question. From a project perspective, what proved to be the most challenging, the most time consuming, the most frustrating and the most rewarding aspects of the design?
  
On the challenging aspect, Paramjit laughed and replied ‘Everything!’ The Buccaneer is a really complex aeroplane from a shape perspective and replicating this accurately was always going to be a challenge, even though he did have accurate shape data to fall back on. In addition to this, detail proved to be another challenge, because the sheer size of the Buccaneer in this scale dictates that there will be a huge emphasis placed on the necessity to include lots of additional detail and where reference material was not as robust or if he required additional supporting information, he wasn’t able to simply jump in his car and arrange to go and get the details he needed.

Sections of the design which proved particularly challenging on the Buccaneer were all the fine details which reveal themselves in this larger scale and included such features as the myriad of weapons options, and cockpit detail Paramjit wanted to incorporate. Thankfully, he could call upon the support of several external experts when it came to securing this information, something which proved invaluable during the design phase.

A computer rendered image showing some of the weapons options Paramjit designed for his new Buccaneer kit.

On a personal level, Paramjit told us that he knew modellers had been requesting this model for so long, that he felt a real sense of duty in ensuring this new kit would meet with their expectations, something he viewed as a personal challenge. As well as designing a representation of the Buccaneer in this larger scale, he wanted to include lots of builder options and plenty of detail, whilst at the same time making the build logical and enjoyable, something modellers will remember as an extremely rewarding experience. In the end, the sheer amount of detail he wanted to include created a problem by itself, as trying to get the tooling cost in on budget did produce more than the odd head-scratching moment for him, but we will be exploring this interesting aspect of the design a little further in a forthcoming blog.

The most time consuming aspect, in addition to working in all the detail, has to be work around the extensive weapons suite this aircraft was able to carry. In addition to requiring expert assistance with these details, Paramjit told us how each weapon option had to be designed separately and with many of the items being so large in this scale, quite some time had to be spent attempting to design the most effective way in which to split the parts, from both a tooling perspective and the overall build effectiveness/enjoyment angle. Paramjit kindly supplied us with screenshots of his Martel Missile design files, showing the two different types of missile and the design splits for each part. He also told us that he designed several different incarnation of part split for each missile, before finally settling on this configuration. The overall cost of tooling can also require a rethink on certain aspects of the design and if one way of designing parts will introduce unacceptable tooling cost increases, a different, slightly more innovative design idea will be required.

This next series of images show design screenshots of Paramjit’s Buccaneer Martel missile designs, showing both the passive and TV guided variants in both complete and part split configuration.

The most frustrating aspect once again came back to Paramjit’s inability to go out and get the information he needed, having to rely on other people, which sometimes led to slight delays. If his expert contacts had not have been so knowledgeable and were able to return the right details so quickly, this project was in danger of suffering some significant project overruns - thankfully, that proved not to be the case.

On the subject of something he found particularly rewarding, Paramjit informed us that this would most definitely be how he designed the cockpit of the new Buccaneer kit, something of which he is incredibly proud. Using all his industry and model making experience, the design split of this feature is quite different and came from his desire to incorporate lots of detail, whilst making logical component splits for ease and clarity of construction. Clearly, the modeller will be the ultimate judges of how impressed they are with this feature, but Paramjit is quite confident they will approve.

Linked to this, the more experience a designer can bring to a particular project, the more effective the replication of detail and its ease of future construction will be. Paramjit told us that something which looks absolutely fantastic in CAD may not carry through to the actual production of the component itself and at that point may require some significant re-working. The more experience a designer has, the more likely the fact that he has come across such issues in the past and therefore will instinctively know when extra care needs to be taken at the design stage. Even though the Buccaneer project presented him with many such challenges, Paramjit is really pleased with how his representation of detail has been tooled and he is confident that modellers will be impressed when they begin building this monster!

What do you think modellers will appreciate most when they get their hands on the new Buccaneer?

Although accurate subject shape representation and lots of impressive detail are now a prerequisite of an Airfix new tooling project, Paramjit feels that how a kit goes together should also be a major consideration, because for modellers of all experience and abilities, how a kit goes together really does set the tone for the entire build project.

Bearing this in mind, Paramjit thinks that some of the hidden features of his new design will actually prove to be real hit with modellers and is something which came from his own extensive modelling experience. Even though many thousands of Workbench readers will have probably built the existing 1/48th scale Buccaneer and been pleased with their finished kit, one of the criticisms of this kit was that it had little or no internal structure and as a consequence, some of the larger parts could suffer from a little warping, dependant on how the kit had been stored. One of the key areas where Paramjit wanted to provide greater build enjoyment for modellers with this new kit, was to endow it with greater structural integrity and incorporated an internal framework which would provide such reassurance. 

Paramjit’s Buccaneer design incorporates many impressive features, including structural components which will give the new model a reassuring level of rigidity.

From the design screenshots we have included, you can see how much greater internal workings may not be seen once construction is complete, but we will certainly be glad its there, particularly if we choose to model our Buccaneer with a full weapons load - this kit has been designed to be as tough as old boots, much like the Buccaneer itself. Paramjit also worked closely with our illustrator (instruction sheet designer) during the development phase of the new model, changing the build order slightly to make construction more logical and provide the structural integrity which will give the modeller confidence when working through what will be an impressively large build project. 

Whilst designing the Buccaneer, did the project leave you with any lasting impressions of the real aircraft?

Although Paramjit has yet to have the thrill of inspecting a Buccaneer at close quarters, he knows only too well how impressively large an aircraft this is from speaking to his colleague who were present during the scanning of the aircraft which is on display at the Ulster Aviation Society, in Northern Ireland. This really is a monster of an aeroplane, made all the more impressive by the fact that these brutes operated from the decks of the Royal Navy’s relatively small aircraft carriers at sea, something which really impressed Paramjit. His new kit is big enough, but how on earth did crews manage to land a Buccaneer on a moving ship in the middle of the ocean?

From a design perspective, there were plenty of noteworthy features incorporated into the design of the real aircraft which Paramjit had to replicate during this project , which gave him a further appreciation of just how impressive an aircraft the Buccaneer was. Everything about its design was big, robust and possibly over-engineered, but all intended to give this aircraft the attributes it requires to fulfil what was actually an extremely demanding operational profile. The cockpit was large and spacious, the undercarriage legs were incredibly strong and the weapons options this aircraft could carry in both its Royal Navy and RAF roles was extensive. 

Paramjit said that he was particularly impressed with the design of the high T horizontal stabilisers and the manoeuvrability of this unit. With the entire unit appearing to angle down immediately on landing, looking for all the world like an additional speed brake, the unit can be trimmed along its entire length for take-off and landing, with the lower leading edge also featuring the boundary layer control this massive aeroplane was famous for. This design innovation was intended to provide the aircraft with greater stability and operability at slower speeds, something which was essential for a naval aeroplane operating from a carrier at sea.

With the Buccaneer being so different from your earlier Mosquito design, how did the two projects compare?

We have already discovered that the Buccaneer was Paramjit’s first 1/48th scale kit design, but how this new challenge certainly did not phase him and actually gave him something of a buzz. This project proved to be a real design step up for him and he told us that this scale demands a designer immerses himself in his subject even more completely, but working with all that extra detail is both enjoyable and rewarding. The way he looked at it, if a modeller was going to consider this kit after building the new 1/72nd scale option, or indeed the earlier 1/48th scale kit, he wanted the experience to be a rewarding one for them and as such, needed his design to incorporate plenty of features they would be impressed with.

The additional engine detail, opening hatch and other build choice options will certainly set this model apart, although the project did highlight the fact that some ideas he might have initially intended to incorporate had to be tempered slightly, for reasons of tooling integrity and design time/cost implications.

More design innovation, Paramjit has included the option to have engine bay detail revealed if so desired, and making this option much less challenging for the modeller.

The extra knowledge he acquired up until this point certainly stood him in good stead when it came to tackling the Buccaneer, experience which really allows a designer to explore new avenues of creativity when working on their latest project. Paramjit told us this experience came into play when he was considering how he could reveal more of the impressive engine detail this kit possessed, should the modeller choose to do so. This does require the modeller to invest a little more time and effort into the build, however, Paramjit wanted to make this exercise as easy as possible, should the modeller wish to go down this route.

As you can see from the top wing structure image attached, he marked out the area which would need removing on the inside of the upper fuselage section, even showing the position of the small drill holes needed to accurately open up this area. Once this section is cleaned up, additional parts such as an access door and blanking parts will ensure the engine area can be effectively displayed, without empty sections of fuselage also being exposed at the same time. 

Do you still have work to do on the Buccaneer?

Another fascinating series of design screenshots, this time showing some of the impressive detail Paramjit has incorporated into his Buccaneer cockpit design.

As was the case with Chris and his Spitfire as covered in the previous edition of Workbench, Paramjit is currently working on an exciting new tooling project, one which we will all find out about early next year, but he still does have remaining Buccaneer responsibilities, as the project negotiates the tooling phase of its development. On receipt of the first set of frame shots from the tooling design, Paramjit built several full and additional sections of the Buccaneer kit, before compiling his tooling report, which contained a list of 154 alterations he needed the tooling manufacturer to address. Interestingly, when conducting our interview, Paramjit had just completed the third stage of test shots, once again undertaking several builds using the latest parts supplied and sending back his required list of changes, which were much less in number than either of the previous two rounds.

As this exciting project nears the end of its design phase, Paramjit expects one more round of test shots to be produced and assessed, before a final list of between 5 and 10 slight tooling modifications will be worked by the toolmaker, prior to this beautiful new model being released for manufacture - exciting times for an Airfix product designer.

What next for you on the design front?

As we have already seen, Paramjit has moved on to a significant new project and whilst we are not really at liberty to divulge any information on subject matter at this stage, he hopes that it will have a similar impact on the hobby as the Buccaneer announcement has. For him, starting a new project is always something to get excited about, an opportunity to take on something new and to apply everything he has learned as a product designer at that time. In truth, the subject of the new project doesn’t really bother him, as he knows he will be investing plenty of time into it over the coming months and will be producing something which will hopefully be viewed as an important addition to the Airfix range.

Before we move on from the subject of our new 1/48th scale Buccaneer, this final trio of images show computer rendered representations of the design files showing some of the detail the model will include. The actual kit will display more finesse than these images show, but they do give us an indication of what we can all look forward to. First, the cockpit section.

Next, the underside of the model, including internal weapons bay detail.

Finally, the ability to open up the engine bay to display all that delicious detail, if so desired.

Taking a more business focussed view, when the Development Manager allocates new tooling projects to his designers, he will do so having taken many logistical and financial parameters into consideration. His more experienced designers will usually be allocated the more challenging projects, be that from a design complexity consideration, or simply the size of the project. Interestingly for the end modelling user, sometimes, a particular new tooling project can only proceed if the team are certain that it can be completed within a certain timeframe, as tooling costs will go beyond project viability if it is not completed as expected. Putting an interesting different perspective on this subject, this can be how a designer actually inherits his next new tooling project, as his experience will ensure timely delivery.

Our final question is the one we always like to ask our designers when they have been kind enough to spend so much time with us. Is there something you would particularly like to design during your time with Airfix?

Having spent quite some time at model shows with Paramjit, we thought we had a pretty good idea of what he was going to tell us here. Quick as a flash he said, “A ship and more specifically HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08)”. As for the scale at which his proposed new design would be worked, he told us that there could only be one scale, 1/350th. Let’s hope that he gets the opportunity.

These really are interesting insights into the work of our Product Designers and once again, we are really grateful to Paramjit for spending so much time enlightening us on something he finds so rewarding and we all find so fascinating. We can’t wait to find out what he is currently working on and bringing our readers details of his latest design masterpiece, but for now, we look forward to several other Buccaneer development updates, as this exciting new model edges closer to its initial release date.

That’s another edition of Workbench in the books, but we will be back as usual next Friday with more modelling news, updates and exclusive imagery from the fascinating world of Airfix. If you have any comments in connection with the blog, or would like to suggest a subject you would like to see covered in a future edition, please do drop us a quick line using our workbench@airfix.com e-mail address. The Workbench team would be only too pleased to hear from you.

To catch up with all the latest Airfix news, please check our various official social media sites, or head for the Airfix website.

Thank you for continuing to support our Airfix Workbench blog.

The Airfix Workbench Team