The Eurofighter. One of the most ambitious cross-country collaborations ever made. Following on the heals of the Panavia Tornado, the Eurofighter is a collaboration between Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Having seen service with all these air arms in addition to a number of export customers, it’s been a successful aircraft.

I knew when Airfix announced the kit in 2024 that I was going to do the Austrian Tiger livery from 2022. I love this livery and have wanted to do an Austrian EF-2000 for a very long time. I always like doing aircraft in lesser known schemes and this definitely fits the bill.

The kit itself comes in a very low part count compared to contemporary kits from Revell or Italeri (or even Airfix’s older tool). It’s a kit designed with the new comer at it’s very core – which also makes it the perfect kit for an evening build or weekend build. The Typhoon has very few changes on it’s extremities meaning you can use this as the base for any number of fabulous schemes that are available.

As you can see it just looks like a very ‘do-able’ kit – it’s not overwhelming and it’s not complicated. However, there’s a caveat unfortunately. The Typhoon has a seemingly warped body to it – this means that it is quite difficult to get it lined up. I’ve seen other content creators with similar reactions and experiences so it seems to be a part of the kit. It’s a shame because otherwise there’s really no fit issues what-so-ever with this.

Once the kit is together it’s an easy paint too – whether you use the included paints (though I never really use these) or buy your own, it’s a two or three paint job which is very low effort. The decals included for the RAF variant are minimal, but that’s much like the real aircraft. I however had opted for the decals from Model Maker for the 2022 Austrian Tiger scheme.

These decals are interesting. The material is kind of like clingfilm (plastic wrap to my American readers). It’s an odd texture and due to the size of the decals they also seem to just rip quite easily if you move them once they’ve been sucked onto the surface with an decal material. I don’t really blame the decals – I think this is an experience thing on my side.

I really enjoyed the look of the decals in the end and felt it gave a really unique and interesting model. They are expensive – between £15-25 depending on where you’re getting them and any offers. But they look amazing. High pigmentation and really pretty crisp. You do need to make sure you cut them close to the edges – as these aren’t pre-cut. So you’ll take off whatever you cut out.

I ended up using two sets to fix my errors – I tried to move the decals too much and this ended up meaning that they got ripped and folded and I just couldn’t get them back to a position where they’d look natural. Also didn’t quite get them to look flat entirely either…but I think they looked good enough. At least when it’s on my shelf!

Buy or Fly

For the kit, whilst it isn’t Airfix’s best starter set, I’d say you should buy it if you want a simpler Eurofighter kit for a quick project or you’re just getting started. Just remember that you are not the reason why the fussalage isn’t going together.

The decals are an easy recommendation. It’s the only way to make this scheme without essentially being a pro-painter…and if you’re at that level you’re not even looking at the decals!