Originally built for SAMI and appeared in the July 2004 issue.

The Kit.

The packaging of this kit is rather minimal. Just a plastic bag containing a photocopied sheet, acting as a simple "cover", 2 vacform sheets showing quite a few minor surface blemishes and variable engraved detail, one clear vacform canopy, a crudely moulded injection sprue for the smaller detail parts and an A4 instruction sheet. There is a nicely printed decal sheet, which includes wing roundels for the later camouflaged version of this aircraft.

Instructions.

The instructions are laid out in the familiar Broplan manner, a 3-view drawing on one side with dimensions and colour call outs. The other side has an exploded view and detail construction diagrams plus a layout of the parts for identification purposes. No historical information is given.

Construction.

First task is to release all the vacform parts from the 2 sheets to get them cleaned up and ready for assembly. The trailing edges of the wings, rudder and elevators will need a fair amount of scraping and thinning to get a reasonably sharp edge. All the injection moulded parts will need to be removed from the sprues as well. They all needed a thorough clean up. The rather plain cockpit is the first installation, using the bare minimum level of detail, namely a simple floor, seat, stick and instrument panel, with a shelf to go behind the pilots seat. Any extra detailing will have be pure guess work, as references are likely to be hard to come by. One photo does show a rather large cylindrical object suspended behind the pilots seat, purpose unknown. This part is not included.

Next, the fuselage halves are joined together and the one piece lower wing applied to it. Both upper wing parts were test fitted several times before they could be glued in place without effecting the dihedral of the lower wing. The finished join is none too good either, so Milliput was used to smooth it out. The horizontal tail surfaces are the next items. To get the all surfaces as smooth as possible for the metal finish, several sanding sessions were needed over the whole airframe. After that, the cleaned up undercarriage parts, including the doors, could then be fixed in place.

The parts representing the Fiat A-80 RC41 radial engine are rather basic (an after-market replacement engine could be considered). This is glued onto the front of the fuselage. The cowling is made up of 2 vacform halves, an injection moulded front section, two intakes and 2 exhuast stubs. It is assembled, filled and kept as a separate item to be applied after painting is complete.

Primer was used to check for any overlooked filling/smoothing tasks. AcladII Aluminium was used for the overall scheme, which did show up some very minor blemishes, but not serious enough to warrant further attention.

After several test fitting sesions, it was with some relief that the single vacform canopy was found out to be a surprisingly good fit. The framework was achieved by using thin strips of silver foil paper, as the engraved framework was too crude to paint accurately.

Accuracy.

The kit measurements are: Wingspan 159mm, overall length 120mm and a height of 39mm. The wingspan and height are almost spot-on, (slightly under on the span), but the length is 2mm too long, if the published dimensions are any thing to go by. Despite this, the rather shapely lines of this ultimately unsuccessful prototype are nicely rendered.

Colour Options.

Only one colour option is given. This is for the prototype, which was silver overall and had minimal markings, just a rudder tricolor & fuselage fasce (no wing fasce) and aircraft ID lettering.

Decals.

The decal sheet sheet is nicely printed and went on without a fuss. Rating: 9/10.

Conclusion/ Recommendation.

Anyone expecting a highly detailed, crisply moulded model are likely to be disappointed. Others may be extremely delighted to see an obscure, but quite attractive aircraft represented in kit form, despite its shortcomings. Those of you who dislike NMF modelling may to wait for the later camouflaged version, something hinted by the extra markings on the decal sheet. With this in mind, I would give the kit a cautious recommendation.

Many thanks to Broplan for the review sample.