Pavla 1/72 FIAT Cr.42. Originally built for SAMI and appeared in the July 2005 issue.

Pavla released a second boxing. Scroll down to find out more.

This kit comes in a rather thin, flimsy dark blue end-opening box. The illustration on the front has two side profiles based on schemes provided on the decal sheet. The grey injection moulded parts are all found on one sprue. Higher detail parts, such as the engine, actuator arms, cockpit details, wheels etc are cast in resin and bagged separately, together with the vacform canopy which is moulded as a a pair. Overall quality of the moulding and casting are above average for limited run type kits, although some flash is present. The engraved panel lines, although accurate, may be slightly too heavy for some tastes. The fabric effect on both the fuselage and wings are nicely rendered, although the wings do have rather thick trailing edges, which is expected with these type of kits. What wasn't expected was a resin cowling cast in two halves. This will require utmost care when joining them, due to the proximity of the small fairings. The 4 schemes provided on the decal sheet are for 3 versions of the Cr.42, the standard model, an A.S. (with a desert carburettor) and an experimental night fighter, which has extended damper exhausts and a generator on the top wing. Pavla have also provided parts to build an aircraft without its wheel spats, even though none of the aircraft on the decal sheet had this feature.

Instruction sheet

The instruction sheet is clear and concise. It is made up of 4 sheets of A4, folded to make a 16 page booklet. A dual language history summary is printed on the front page, the next page is a neatly drawn parts breakdown. Page three has drawing of the decal sheet, a colour matching chart (using Humbrol/FS numbers). The next 5 five pages have the easy to follow assembly sequence. The 4 schemes (3 Italian, 1 Hungarian) are spread over the 8 remaining pages. You will need to check these schemes to help you decide which version to build.

Assembly

The cockpit is a mixture of resin and injection parts. Being 1/72 scale, the detail is understandably simplified. None of the tubular framework is present, for example. This does not matter too much, the small cockpit opening does restrict the view. Interior colour is light grey with black instrument panels. Each fuselage half had injector pin towers that had to be removed to allow the cockpit detail to sit comfortably. The tailfin could also do with thinning down as it does look somewhat bulky.

The two resin cowling halves were aligned as accurately as possible before applying any superglue. Having decided on modelling the A.S. version, its resin cast desert intake was fixed in place, which neatly hides the lower join line. The top join was very clean and only needed a careful swipe of wet and dry to disappear. The resin engine is designed to be attached to a rather thick back plate, which is then glued to the front of the fuselage. However, it soon became apparent that this was not going to work, the engine would be out of position, not allowing the cowling to get anywhere near the fuselage. The back plate was therefore discarded, some material removed from the back of the engine (and  from the front of the fuselage). Only then could the cowling line up correctly. The A.S. aircraft has a large spinner, which was made of two pieces, the front part being the smaller spinner used for the other types which is combined with a thick rear plug. Care was taken to ensure correct alignment of each blade onto the spinner.

The one piece lower wing/fuselage part has a separate top centre section, presumably to help model the leading edge intakes. Maybe Pavla wanted to save modelers the bother drilling them out like you do on some other Cr.42 models but, to be honest, it did not work too well. Some filler was needed to tidy up each aperture. A bit of filler was also used to fill the gap between the lower wing and main fuselage after they were joined together. The long carburettor fairing moulded on the lower fuselage has a square section. It should be round. The stabilisers were attached when their mating surfaces had been cleaned up. They needed just a touch of filler to get a neat join. Each of the undercarriage legs had sink marks. These were filled after the lower wheel fairing parts were glued in place.

The model is now ready for painting, the rest of the assembly carried out afterwards. After the all paint had dried, the central cabane struts were applied to the upper wing which was then placed on the fuselage to check alignment. After a few adjustments to strut lengths etc, the rest of the struts were glued in place onto the upper wing. This sub-assembly was then attached to the fuselage and lower wing. This left just the cowling and undercarriage to do, plus all the other smaller items such as the actuator arms, pitot/venturi sensors. Last item to be attached was the propeller, which was fixed to the engine using a section of rod.

Accuracy.

The kits measures out to the following dimensions. A span of 134.5mm, length of 114.5mm and a height of 43mm. When scaled out to the dimensions on the instruction sheet, it is very accurate indeed. The final completed model perfectly captures the distinctive lines of this aircraft.

Colour options.

As already mentioned, there are 4 schemes on the instruction sheet. 3 with the standard three colour mottled scheme for 2 Italian & 1 Hungarian aircraft and an A.S. version with the so-called 'Lizard' scheme. The experimental C.N. version had additional areas of black, applied to top of the cowling and the lower surface of the top wing. The A.S.'s camouflage, which was also used on a few G.50's and the G.55 prototype, has a dark olive green base with large light hazel splotches. I thought I'd try the reverse mottled technique where the Hazel colour is applied first. The mottles were then masked off with Blu-Tak and the dark olive green sprayed over the top. It seemed to work quite well. Colours were from the Xtracolor enamel range, X104 for the Nocciola Chiaro, X109 for Verde Oliva Scuro and X134 for the Grigio Azzurro Chiaro.

Decals.

Excellent quality and good register. They were no problem when applied to a properly prepared surface. The white had a very slight translucency but it was not too alarming. The only bad element was that both fuselage fasce were pointing in the same direction. The starboard side will end up facing the wrong way (should always face towards the front). A point deducted, so 8/10.

Conclusion/recommendation.

Taking into account the limitations of limited run kit production, this is a good quality product that builds into a very accurate model. Some of the problems encountered during construction were easily overcome and should not be too difficult for anyone who has yet to venture into this type of modelling. The added bonus is the small amount of rigging required on the model! This kit gets a very high recommendation indeed.

Pavla 1/72 Fiat Cr.42/J.11

Kit

This is essentially a re-issue of Pavla's Cr.42 kit (previously reviewed for SAMI). This time around it is loaded with added extras to allow either the CN (night fighter), LW or the ski equipped J11 variants to be built.

Construction

Although it's a low volume limited run kit, with the disadvantages that apply to this method of production, a thorough clean up of the parts after careful removal from the sprues means that it builds into a very nice, accurate looking model, although I used a spare resin propellor boss from Special Hobby's pre-serie Ro.57, as the kit part was unusable.

Colour options

They are the C.N. overall black Italian scheme, an LW with a Luftwaffe scheme and the J11. I decided on the Swedish aircraft as I have not seen this variant in kit form before. The scheme is also interesting, with most of the original mottle scheme obliterated by the winter camouflage. It was achieved by applying the mottled areas first, masking them off with Blu-Tak and applying the white. The decals for the white numerals were not totally opaque and were difficult to apply over the cowl bump fairings.

Otherwise, an excellent choice of subject matter that helps to extract more mileage out of Pavla's more than decent Cr.42 tooling.