Revell 1964 Avro Lancaster “Dam Buster” Vintage Model Airplane Kit Review Unboxing

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:14]Howdy and welcome back to Celebrating Vintage Model Kits. Going to be looking at another Lancaster kit. Uh in this case, this is the Revel 1964 Averro Lancaster Dam Buster. Uh this is kit number H202.

[00:00:29]Uh this is actually an issue from uh Rell of Great Britain and uh is supposed to represent one of the B mark III specials uh utilized in the Dam Buster raid or opinion chastise.

[00:00:44]We got box art by Jack Lynwood and we got his signature in the corner here. Uh the original issue of this kit was uh 1963 or the first version of the kit I should say uh which was a standard uh uh B mark1 uh without uh the stuff for the dam buster raid. Uh I think the uh release of this kit sort of coincided with release of the secrets of uh the bomb the upkeep keep bomb and uh its delivery mechanisms uh which occurred in 1963 and then this kit comes out in 1964. So I think uh that is no coincidence. U but as you'll see there's still a couple of things they didn't get quite right with it. But uh operation chastise as the the uh code name for the dam buster mission uh occurred on the night of 1617 May of 1943 and it was attack on the dams in the Brewer Valley. Uh concept was was to uh breach the dams, flood the valleys and that would then disrupt war production.

[00:01:58]um it wasn't necessarily to kill people uh but uh they knew that that was a pretty severe risk and you know war workers uh you know not being able to go to work uh would certainly impact the production as well. Um the uh uh dams uh specifically the Mona and the Ader uh were breached. the Sorper was damaged and a fourth uh uh dam um didn't really have any damage to it at all.

[00:02:32]So, specifically the aircraft that were utilized were uh Barks uh which were the ones with uh the Packard built uh Merlin, the 224 version of the Merlin. Uh essentially the same as a B Mark1 just with the uh uh different uh engines. Uh but there were some modifications uh to the aircraft that were assigned to this project. Um they uh were designed to carry the Vicers type 464 upkeep bomb.

[00:03:02]Upkeep was the code name for this thing here, the ash can uh that was used uh sometimes referred to as a mine uh as opposed to a bomb. And uh I'm sure pretty much anybody that's going to be watching this program has uh seen the movie The Damn Busters is very familiar with this raid. So uh we're not going to get too much into you know the concepts of it, but we'll discuss the aircraft a little bit more.

[00:03:33]Uh so aside from uh the uh um changes that were made to be able to to uh uh drop this uh weapon. Uh there were some changes in the defensive armament. The top turret was removed uh to save weight and um the gunner that normally would occupy the top turret ended up occupying the nose turret because on the regular uh Lancaster bombers the uh bomb aimer um was also responsible for manning the nose turret. So, uh, since they wanted to keep the bomb aimer, uh, focused on releasing the weapon, uh, and they figured that they were going to need the nose guns, uh, for, you know, maybe knocking out, uh, uh, air defenses on the bridge or around the bridge. Uh, they opted to, uh, move the gunner, uh, to be permanently placed in that nose gun position. Uh the bomb site was also removed and uh they utilized a handheld wooden kind of a Y-shaped thing with little uh prongs at the end that lined up with, you know, these towers on the bridge or on the uh uh dams or other structures uh to give the uh correct distance. And then for the correct height for dropping it, they utilized two uh spotlights underneath, one in the nose, one in the tail that uh converged at a certain distance. Um so when those lights were side by side or merged, uh that showed that the aircraft was flying at the correct height for dropping uh the upkeep weapon. Uh therefore, it would be able to skip and not disintegrate. um when it hit the surface of the water. Uh the Bombay doors were removed uh to allow for the mounts for the upkeep, which you see you Lynwood's uh idea of what it looked like on here.

[00:05:35]Uh the uh drive motor for uh getting the uh backspin on the upkeep was uh powered by the hydraulic uh system that was uh used for the upper turret. And since the upper turret was not being utilized uh that hydraulic motor was was used for the bomb. Um let's see uh the uh after these modifications were done to the aircraft uh it was called the Lancaster type 464 provisioning which meant that it was provisioned to carry the 464 upkeep bomb. Uh the idea was is that these aircraft could then be uh returned back to standard uh B mark III uh uh version.

[00:06:30]But in reality uh most of these aircraft ended up staying in their special status.

[00:06:37]A total of 23 of these uh type 464s were produced and uh 19 of them were used on the Damn Buster Raid. Uh, one other thing that was changed on them was the uh, serial numbers on the aircraft had a suffix of a G added to the end and that uh, designated the aircraft was uh, a special aircraft that needed to be under constant armed guard uh, while it was on the ground. So, uh, you'll see that in the decals when we take a look at them.

[00:07:16]And let's see what else is there.

[00:07:21]Uh there was also after this uh this mission was successful there was an idea to utilize the the upkeep weapon against ground targets uh particularly for like the Normandy coast uh the concrete you know imp placements and bunkers and stuff that were along there. And the idea was that they would spin this forward and they you drop it on the water, you know, right out the right offshore. It would skip and roll once it got up onto the sand. It would continue rolling forward, wedge itself up against some sort of concrete imp placement and then be detonated. Um, but that uh did not uh end up being used. And as mentioned before, this upkeep uh weapon was uh held as a secret up until 1963.

[00:08:08]And in fact, when you watch the the movie Damn Busters, um you'll see that they do, you know, when they're shooting actual um fill of some of the actual testing, they kind of blot out, you know, the actual weapon. Uh the Lancasters in the movie just had this kind of semi, you know, hemispherical dome thing kind of stuck up inside the bomb bay. You don't see any of the mechanisms, you know, for for spinning it or anything. you can't you don't really get a good look at what the thing looks like. So, uh that movie was made in 1955.

[00:08:44]Um on the mission itself, um eight aircraft were lost out of those uh 19.

[00:08:51]Two were hit by P hit power lines on the way into the target. Three were shot down on the way into the targets. Uh one was shot down over the target over I think it was the Mona bridge or bridge.

[00:09:04]I keep saying bridge. uh the Bona Dam.

[00:09:07]Uh two were shot down on the way out. Uh three returned uh without uh ever dropping their weapons uh either getting lost or um faulty equipment.

[00:09:20]Uh out of the 11 attacks, um let's see, no there were to 11 of the 19 actually attacked the bridges. Um, and of the aircraft that were lost, three three crewmen were able to parachute.

[00:09:37]One later died of injuries after parachuting, and one survived a crash.

[00:09:43]So, out of the 133 air crew involved, 53 of them died, uh, which translates to roughly about a 40% casualty rate, which was pretty high.

[00:09:54]and leader Guy Gibson. Um he went on to uh work with the Pathfinders and he was lost on uh 19th September of 44 on an attack uh to uh right uh Rhe DT uh Reit right and he was flying a mosquito and uh was lost somewhere over the Netherlands. He did receive the Victoria Cross for the damn raid. He flew 170 missions and he was 26 years old at the time that he died. So that's a little bit little bit of esoteric details about the dam buster raid itself. Now let's take a look at our kit. So as mentioned, we've got this fantastic box art here from Jack Lenwood.

[00:10:43]As is common with some of the box art of the era, the this is kind of a stretch in reality. Um I don't think there's really any way that the Lancaster could be pulling this maneuver after just making a run on the dam here. But, you know, it it really conveys, you know, the uh the image that you'd want from this. See, the explosion, the dam cracking, and the, you know, barely missing the side wall, the side of a mountain here just really makes this an exciting image to attract any 12-year-old to buy this kit. Then over the side here, we've got, you know, mention of the upkeep bomb being top secret and a fairly good rendition of what the bomb actually looks like.

[00:11:31]And uh we've got the Alvo Dam Buster Lancaster in 72nd scale with the secret bomb.

[00:11:40]On the box end here, we've got our kit number here and suggested paints uh from the Revel line for painting this. Uh this uh uh kit is the box has deteriorated some, so it's not the best representation, but it still kind of gets it across. Over here we see, let me turn it this way.

[00:12:05]Here we've got the made in Great Britain and their address. Couple of things, clear canopies, moving parts, good surface detail, and pilot figures. Then a whole bunch of other 72nd scale aircraft.

[00:12:23]And on this end, got a plug for the B17, which came out about this time. One of my favorite Jaclyn Wood box arts of all time.

[00:12:35]A little scrap shot of the upkeep again.

[00:12:37]And then some more details about the what comes with the kit. And then the copyright of 1964.

[00:12:49]Let's get inside here.

[00:12:54]You can see this is a printed straight on cardboard.

[00:12:57]This is fairly typical of English UK produced kits at the time.

[00:13:03]Uh we got our instruction sheet which is in pretty pretty good shape and bright white still. And here we can see your printed England. Got some history here about the dam buster raid itself. some specifications on the aircraft and then a three view slash4 view of the aircraft for painting guide with your color call outs.

[00:13:30]So here they're talking about uh uh only using dark green and dark earth and to not paint the rest of the aircraft because it is molded in black.

[00:13:41]So you could uh save yourself some painting time.

[00:13:48]We fold it open here. We can see we've got four steps. Yeah, four steps.

[00:13:54]Similar to the airfix kit. Uh lot of things going on uh with the assembly of the fuselage, including the turrets and the flight deck.

[00:14:06]And we've got movable uh tail surfaces here for the elevators.

[00:14:14]And it appears to be one piece uh fins like on the other one. And then they're doing a parts list call out for the parts that are needed for this step and then written instructions of what to do.

[00:14:30]Step two is broken up into A, B, C, and D, which is landing gear, engine cell, inner ones, and then outer ones.

[00:14:41]And then looks like we've got some ability to have some movement in the gear.

[00:14:53]But the problem with this is like a couple of other kits that are designed this way, the gear doors don't move. So yeah, you can pull the gear up, but your gear doors are still going to be hanging out. And then as far as uh we've got wing assembly here and looks like we've got flaps and ailerons that are movable.

[00:15:22]And then this last step here is final assembly and showing uh this insert into the Bombay and showing you to use some thread to uh do the the drive pulley for the upkeep bomb.

[00:15:47]And that's your instructions.

[00:15:51]Now, here's our decal. Still have the uh little film that goes on top of it.

[00:15:56]These are printed in Great Britain. We have application instructions on the back, printed in England.

[00:16:06]And so this is uh these decals are used to represent the aircraft flown by Guy Gibson on the Damn Buster Raid itself. So, we've got our serial number here of ED932, and then there's the G for uh needing a guard uh on it at all times. So, this aircraft was uh delivered on 30th of April, 1943 to the 617 squadron at RAF Scampton.

[00:16:37]Uh after the raid uh it was used occasionally on some ops trials and uh uh was recoded at some point as AJV as in Victor and uh it was put into storage on 15 April of 1944 and remained in storage until 29 January 45.

[00:17:00]taken out of storage and was at an operational maintenance unit and then was transferred to a 61 squadron in August of 46.

[00:17:10]Uh it was to be utilized in what was called operation guzzle and uh the purpose of it was um to dispose of the rest of the upkeep bombs. So uh there was about 50 of them 55 of them produced and by the you know by 1946 they were becoming unstable. So they wanted to dispose of the 37 bombs that were remaining. So uh they sent over three of the uh uh specials uh to the squadron to be able to take these bombs out out to the ocean 280 mi out off the coast of Glasgow.

[00:17:51]uh where the Atlantic shelf uh dropped off to ensure that these bombs would sink down to a depth that no one would be able to get them. So uh ED 932 was recoded as YFC uh while it was assigned to uh 60 61 squadron and uh they proceeded to over the next three four months go out and drop these bombs out in the ocean to get rid of them.

[00:18:20]>> [clears throat] >> So the this specific aircraft um did uh have a uh uh an operational accident and it was transferred uh on 11 November of 46 or I'm sorry um yeah it was uh transferred uh November 46 and then it ended up being uh scrapped on 29 July of 47.

[00:18:49]Uh somebody uh did have the uh wherewithal to recognize the significance of this aircraft and you know while it was at the scrapyard went in and uh removed the control column and the throttle quadrant off the aircraft and those are still preserved to this day.

[00:19:09]So I will show you some images of the actual aircraft here and some of the crew.

[00:20:09]So, this kit came to me bagged. Um, inside bag has been opened. Um, it does seem to be the correct shape for this uh kit. So, I'm going to assume that this is the way that it originally came. So, I'm going to set this aside here and pull each one out. separately.

[00:20:32]We start here with the wings. These are the upper wings. And we've got uh some pretty nice surface detail on this. Uh we've got uh quite a number of raised panel lines. I think there's a little bit of engraved panel lines here. Um little hatches, access points, reinforcement ribs.

[00:20:56]uh does have uh rivet detail on there, but it's not too heavy-handed.

[00:21:03]Do have quite a bit of flash, though, which is surprising for such an early kit.

[00:21:09]Here is the Bombay insert, which itself has a bunch of uh rivets on it.

[00:21:17]So, this would have been the rear side where there's the fairing to the rear fuselage. There's where the bomb would go. And then right here is where the uh drive spool would go.

[00:21:30]Nothing on this side.

[00:21:32]Our parts numbers uh quite often are directly on the part itself.

[00:21:45]Here's the bottom side of the wings.

[00:21:50]And again, raised uh lines for the most part, some engraved, but overall pretty nice. Not too heavy-handed.

[00:22:03]Here's a couple of our engine cells or the power egg.

[00:22:11]We do have some representation looks like of radiator on there.

[00:22:16]quite see that.

[00:22:20]And then the exhaust shrouds don't have openings on them, unfortunately. This is looks like some gear doors. And here's our one piece tails.

[00:22:37]Get numbers again.

[00:22:47]And this sprew includes these are our elevators. Here's our tail surfaces. There's our wheels and tires.

[00:23:00]Here's our props. All as one piece with the hub backside of everything. Nothing special.

[00:23:13]Looks like part of the gear.

[00:23:22]Then this tree has our ailerons and our flaps.

[00:23:28]Here's our upkeep bomb here.

[00:23:32]It's one end there, one in there.

[00:23:36]And this appears to be the top cover for the top turret.

[00:23:42]And here's the struts for the upkeep.

[00:23:46]Some more gear, I think landing gear parts.

[00:23:50]There's our machine gun barrels. One has broken off. Tail wheel and yolk. And here's our air crew. And our air crew look decidedly small for 172nd scale.

[00:24:05]two gunners and two a pilot and flight engineer.

[00:24:11]Then here's something else that's interesting.

[00:24:13]This piece here, I don't if you notice in the instructions, but this here is the Frasier Nash FN uh I think it's 64, the belly turret that was on some of the very early Bark 1's.

[00:24:28]And let's see if Yeah, so you see it right there.

[00:24:35]And instruction here it shows assembling it with that belly turret. Now the Dam Buster aircraft did not have that and fact you can even see it on the box art here. You can see the guns pointing out here.

[00:24:54]So that's an inaccuracy with the kit that it did not have the belly turret installed.

[00:25:04]And here's our final tree which has our fuselage.

[00:25:10]Similar again, we've got some raised lines, some engraved lines.

[00:25:15]Our windows are uh solid, which a number of the Lancasters you did paint these over. And of course, as the production line went along, fewer and fewer windows were installed.

[00:25:28]Um, but in this case, yeah, you should still have some windows here. I guess that's a quick way of doing it. Um, could probably put some white glue into each one of those to kind of represent some glass or perspects.

[00:25:43]Then our tail turret area. This is kind of nice. They got the flare out for the fairing.

[00:25:50]And then we've got these should be open here. These are little bomb aimer side windows.

[00:25:58]And then here's the uh engine cells that have the gear similar again.

[00:26:06]Look on this side here. There is no interior detail whatsoever. And then we do have the Rell Inc.

[00:26:15]uh copyright inside there.

[00:26:23]As far as other pieces go, let's see what else we got in here.

[00:26:27]Got one of our propellers loose. So you can see that a little closer.

[00:26:35]Not the best in the world. [sighs] Blades I think should be a little wider and then come to a more of a point.

[00:26:48]Although, you know, think this is the one with the Packard. I don't know if it maybe it did have uh like Hamilton standard props on it instead of the uh the rotal props that were on the B Mark1's.

[00:27:01]Here is our uh cockpit canopy.

[00:27:06]We've got the Astrodome molded in here.

[00:27:10]And this one does have a nice raised framing on it. Should be easy to paint that. thickness is, you know, pretty thick, but it's a fairly clear plastic.

[00:27:21]Unlike what we see with the Airfix kits of this era, which were the the the clear parts are just the atrocious Achilles heel to those kits. This one's pretty good. Then, as far as our turrets go, this looks like the tail turret.

[00:27:36]Uh, as we've discussed before, the tail turrets typically had the center perspects missing. Get better view.

[00:27:44]This is done all as one piece.

[00:27:47]suppose the two-piece ones you see on some other kits. And then this, I think, is the nose turret. I'm not so sure that shape is all that accurate, but but there you have it. It's fairly clear. And again, raised framing on it.

[00:28:05]What else we got in here? Here's a couple engine cell parts. Again, we can see these a little clearer. Maybe these look pretty nice. Would be nice if the uh exhaust shroud, the flame dampeners were uh open on the ends there.

[00:28:28]And there's the bomb aimers nose piece. A little bit of distortion in that. There is a flat part on there.

[00:28:38]And couple of gear parts it looks like here.

[00:28:45]So there you have it. That is your Airfix Lancaster Gam Buster version.

[00:28:55]Now Airfix or I'm sorry uh Rell did release this kit as a standard uh uh B Mark1 uh B Mark III uh throughout uh its production.

[00:29:13]So uh first issue was 1963 as a standard uh B mark1. Uh it was a decals for it were asked for sugar and box art again was pretty spectacular.

[00:29:27]It's by Jack Lynwood as well. Then you have this uh 64 issue for the first one of the Dam Buster versions.

[00:29:39]uh 65 you had uh Revel US uh did their issue of the damn buster kit and then in ' 66 uh Revel Great Britain did their issue of the standard Lancaster.

[00:29:59]Also in ' 66, uh, Revel of Japan issued both the, uh, standard and the Dam Buster version using the same artwork from for the standard one, but the Dam Buster version had its own uh, new artwork.

[00:30:19]kind of similar but more correct is showing the aircraft still kind of coming over the the dam but in a more realistic uh position.

[00:30:31]Uh and then uh 67 Rell Keycar which is uh uh Brazil issued the Damuster one. In 70 Rell Japan did both the Dam Buster and the standard and they both utilized new artwork for both of those. Uh in 71, Revel US reissued the Dam Buster again.

[00:30:52]Basically the same thing. Uh 76, uh Revel Japan did the Dam Buster and the standard version again uh utilizing the 1966 artwork and so they reverted back to their original Japanese artwork.

[00:31:10]79 Advent, which was uh small little company, you know, created by some workers from Rell uh to repot older, uh molded kits. Um they did an issue of it with a photo on the box. 1980, uh Keycer again did the Damn Buster and the Standard, uh with the original artwork from uh 63 and 64.

[00:31:38]Uh what else? Uh 82 US got a photo box version uh with new decals. 89 another US version with new artwork and new decals. 89 uh they did the Damn Buster version uh in with this original artwork again and revised some other parts of the box itself. Uh the 82 and 89 versions uh other ones were the standard uh uh Lancaster.

[00:32:09]And sometime in the 80s out of Brazil, Kiko uh did a version of the uh um both the Dam Buster and the standard version uh utilizing um the 1980s box styles. Uh 94, Revel issued the Mark1 standard version with new decals. And then 2001 they released another dam buster with new box art and decals.

[00:32:38]Uh that's the end of this particular mold from Rall is in 2007 they released a whole new tooling uh which is considered to be a pretty good uh pretty good kit.

[00:32:51]So that's about it for this one. If you've built one of these, you know, tell us about it in the comment section.

[00:32:57]If you got one of these sitting on your shelf, take a picture of it, send it in for our next viewer build video. So, coming up next is going to be a comparison between the this kit and the airfix kit. So, be on the lookout for that. And uh that's about it. So, as always, have yourself a great rest of your day.