The De Haviland Sea Vixen is one of my favorite aircraft, mostly because it is so unusual looking. I am very happy that Dragon (Cyber Hobbies) has chosen to make a kit of this strange aircraft.

Dragon produced this kit in 126 parts in light grey plastic which is very brittle. I have built several Dragon Golden Wing series aircraft and I am always amazed at all the fine detail they put into their kits. This one is no exception.

On to my build of the Sea Vixen. I started with the cockpit as the instructions stated. Overall, I have found that the Dragon kits have very poor instructions in one respect – there are no references as to the colors of any parts. The Sea Vixen is strange in that the pilot has one cockpit and the navigator/radar operator has another. The pilot sits offset from the centerline of the aircraft. The navigator sits in a cockpit that is lower and to the right of the pilot, and he has only small windows on the side and on top to see out of. When the aircraft is assembled, you cannot see anything in the navigator’s position. I would like to mention that both cockpit positions are very well detailed with very nice seats. Since there are no coloring instructions, I had to refer to some online detail photos. I found that both cockpits were entirely black. This made an easy paint job.

I was very pleased to see that the intakes and exhaust showed the engine fans and proper exhausts. However, when installed, they cannot be seen except with a flashlight. The fuselage was split horizontally, which did not prove any problem and the fit was excellent.

The instructions call for installing the clear parts before closing up the fuselage. I would install the clear side window for the navigator, as it fits from the inside, and leave the other clear parts for later. The instructions call for three different positions for the airbrake. Since the fit was poor in the closed position, I chose to leave it open. The actuator strut to leave it open was too long and didn’t allow the nose wheel to touch the ground when installed in either open position. After the landing gear was installed, I re-positioned the brake with a shortened strut. In addition, there is no blocking when the airbrake is in the down position, so there is an ugly hole left to look into.

One thing I must note and that is to add a ton of weight to the nose to prevent tail dragging.

The twin booms are in one piece with just the rudders to put on. This was a nice touch, since the booms were hollow and fit nicely with the rest of the fuselage. Only a little filler was required for the seam line.

The wings went together nicely and the fit was perfect to the inner wing. I was especially happy with the way the outer wing attached to the inner with pegs that fit into slots to assure a perfect join. The other thing I liked was the option to show the wings in a folded position. When I do another Sea Vixen, I will show it in this position.

Masking was a bit of a chore, since it was white on the bottom and dark sea grey on the top. I used Vallejo acrylic airbrush paint that airbrushed beautifully over Duplicolor White automotive primer.

Decals took a lot of time, as there were 116 to apply. Lots of stencils on this bird.
Overall, I found this kit to be more of a challenge than the other Dragon kits. As I have said in the past reviews of Dragon kits, the instructions stink when it comes to color callouts. I would recommend this kit to an experienced modeler with lots of research available. I would also like to say that in spite of its shortcomings, I enjoyed building it and look forward to them releasing a Sea Vixen FAW.2.

I wish to thank Dragon Models USA for the review sample and Steve Collins and Dave Morrissette of IPMS/USA for giving me this kit to review.