Choroszy Modelbud 1/72 Fiat G.5 built for a SAMI review article in late 2004.

The Kit.

The blue and white Choroszy Modelbud box, with a colour profile glued on the lid, contains a number of bags filled with a profusion of resin parts, as well as a set of instructions and a decal sheet. As expected, the quality of the casting is very good, the fabric effect having been faithfully rendered. The wings have nice crisp trailing edges but their leading edges will need a clean up with wet and dry. The only disappointment this time around is the relatively large amount of air bubbles found in the lower portion of each fuselage half. This is not usually the case with Modelbud. Some time is spent identifying and sorting out the various parts, the most confusing being the assortment of struts.

Instructions.

Following the typical Choroszy route, the instructions are photocopied over 12 pages of 3 folded A4 paper, starting with a brief history and technical information followed by a collection of 4 assembly diagrams, 5 colour-schemes and a 3-view drawing that's spread over the centre pages. The assembly sequence is not too hard to follow, apart from the fuselage to wing strut arrangement. I used the 3-view as further aid in this case. Colour information is rather scanty at best, with no FS numbers or paint manufacturer references given at all.

Assembly.

The fuselage halves are the first items to be worked on. This is to remove the waste resin material found along the lower fuselage edges. Extra care taken here will ensure less problems when it comes to joining the two halves together. The cockpit detail follows the usual Choroszy method, with sidewall detail moulded inside each fuselage half. The floor and instrument panels will need to be trimmed slightly before gluing in place. The rear two-part seat will either needed to be trimmed to fit, or the floor altered accordingly. With no colour instructions provided, I used a pale grey for the interior, picking out various detail in silver or black. The wide cockpit openings will allow most detail to be seen, so it is worth spending a little more effort here. The two fuselage halves can now be lined up, before applying thin super-glue along the seams to join them together. The bottom wing and tail surfaces were then super-glued in place.

Now comes the next rather troublesome phase... namely the struts. Seemingly a never ending problem for some resin manufacturers, maybe as a compromise between mould strength and scale appearance. In this case, Choroszy have veered too far towards strength. They are much too thick, which means it will look far too crude and toy like when assembled. Carefully measured and trimmed Brass Strutz replacements were prepared instead. This will enable a better representation of the rather delicate appearance of the Warren strut arrangement preferred by FIAT during that time. After the silver had been sprayed onto the model, the small strut location points on each wing were drilled out a little bit to help aid the positioning of each strut. After all the struts were in place, the top wing could then be applied. Some extra was done on the undercarriage struts as well, shortening them to something like their proper length and avoid a rather stork like sit. Again, these resin struts are a little too thick, so they ought to be replaced as well. There are parts provided for a generator, which is placed on the leading edge of the top wing, but most photos do not show this item, so check first.

The engine parts are identical to those supplied in Choroszy's FIAT G.5 kit, which was released at the same time. The cowling is quite delicately moulded, so care is needed when removing it from the casting block. Use a very sharp blade!

Accuracy.

The kit measurements are a wing span of 122.5mm, a length of 99.5mm and a height of 35.5mm. This scales out to 8.82m, 7.16m and 2.55m respectively. Against the dimensions given on the sheet, which were 8.76m, 7.00m & 2.5m, the kit is fairly close, being 1mm over on span & height, but nearly 2mm short on length. The model itself looks fine when compared with various photos and emphasizes the necessity of using the replacement strut material.

Colour Options.

There are 5 schemes to choose from, 4 Italian and 1 Spanish Civi War scheme. 3 are overall silver and 2 with camouflage, including the Spainish scheme. The camouflaged schemes are hard to make out on the instruction sheet, so some guess work and better references will be needed to execute these. I chose one of the simpler silver schemes, to match the FIAT G.5 model reviewed recently. For the silver, AlcladII White Aluminium as airbrushed onto previously sprayed and polished grey primer. All struts were hand painted with Humbrol Satin Black, as was the rear surfaces of the metal 2-bladed propellor, a standard practice not mentioned in the instructions. I also hand painted the red portion of the rudder tricolor, using a 50/50 mix of Humbrol19/20

Decals.

The decal sheet is very nicely printed and in perfect register. As I chose such a simple scheme, I only needed the green and white portion of the rudder decal and the the fuselage fasce. Rating 9/10.

Conclusions/Recommendations.

Yet another fine model produced by Choroszy, but let down this time by suspect casting and those cumbersome struts. Anyone wishing to build this kit will need to use much finer replacements in order to get this aircraft looking 'right'. One advantage is the lack of complex rigging, due to the Warren strut layout, so it could still be a suitable subject for anyone yet to build a 1/72 resin biplane, although the struts are still quite a challenge. Because of this, I would recommend this kit to experienced modellers only.

Many thanks to Choroszy Modelbud for the review sample.