This is one time when I have another 1/72 XF10F-1 Jaguar kit with which to compare the Anigrand offering. This is the Esoteric vacuformed kit and it comes with a set of scale three views. Now, I'm going to say up front that I don't know which is the most accurate; Esoteric, Anigrand or the 3 views. It could well be that they all have errors. One thing for sure, they are all quite similar.

The fuselage of the Anigrand kit is longer than that of the Esoteric kit by quite a bit; at least 1/4 inch. The Anigrand fuselage also has the intakes more vertical than on the Esoteric version and the Esoteric wheel wells are narrower on the bottom. When measured against the plans, the Anigrand fuselage is basically the same length, though narrower at the rear. The Anigrand canopy is larger in all dimensions. Wings are about the same in terms of shape with the Anigrand wings being a bit longer when compared to the Esoteric or plans wings. The tail is identical in all three. The horizontal stab of the Anigrand kit has a smaller forward 'triangle' compared to the other two and the rest of the tailplane is slightly wider at the rear. The rear of the taiplane fairing should be nearly pointed, where Anigrand has it rounded off. I guess that pretty well does it with comparisons as the rest of the parts are what one would expect from the two companies.

Anigrand has a rather ingenious way of having the wings sweepable. There is a resin insert with a section of elastic that slides forward and back as you move the wings. The forward part of this includes a blanking section so that when the wings are at full forward sweep, the hole will be blanked off. There is, however, nothing for the top section and test fitting the wings showed that the openings in the fuselage around the wings will never be sealed. The cockpit section includes the wheel well and fits snugly into the opening provided. There is plenty of room in the nose for weights as those will be needed. Again, the interior is quite basic with but a somewhat generic looking bang seat and control column.

I should also comment on the quality of the molding. My copy suffers quite a bit from poorly molded intake lips with lots of air pockets and just plain resin crud on them. This is also found on the wing tips, the nose, and the rudder portion of the vertical stab. There are also more littledepressions all over the wings and especially the horizontal stab than I'd like to see. The horizontal stab also had a long, thin chunk out of one of the leading edges. These will not be impossible to fix, but will be time consuming to do so, some of it requiring sections to be removed and replaced with plastic card, the air pocket situation being so prevalent. I am glad to see that the crud in the wheel wells that was so prevalent in the XF-88 is totally absent from this one.

There is a nicely done decal sheet and the Jaguar had one of the more interesting presentations on a prototype that I've seen. It is overall gloss sea blue with polished aluminum leading edges. I'd use either Alclad II or Bare Metal Foil for this portion of things.

Well, there you have it. Anigrand has provided us with another superb prototype, especially for those who like the Navy stuff. Yes, it will take a bit of additional work to bring up to standards, and if Anigrand does nothing else, I do wish they'd get the equipment that will allow them to make error-free parts. I know it can be done as I see it from other companies all the time. Meanwhile, we can use our modeling skills to fix things and will end up with yet another fine model for our shelves.

My thanks to Nostalgic Plastic, the US importer, for the review kit. Get yours today and shipping is free in the US.

July 2006

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