Review by: Julian Seddon (December 2011)
The Hawker Hart was the victor of a battle of tenders for a light bomber in 1926. Construction was started in 1927 and it was eventually shown for the first time in public in 1928.
There are a number of books about the Hart and its large family of Aircraft. The best of these appears to be the one (showcased in the Gallery Grid above) published by Mushroom Model Publications.
This has the whole history and plans of the Hart covering the different variations of the original; plenty of period pics too.
Finally 80 pages of colour photos and camo schemes. I feel that this is a one-stop book you will need no more.
Some good reference and footage to get you in the mood!
The Model
Silver Wings have produced 3 aircraft models since their start in 2009 and all of them are British bi-plane fighters and fighter bombers from the interwar period – although of course the Gladiator famously fought in WW11.
There are 9 bags of resin (that’s a relief after the Comet tank!) and it all looks crisply moulded with only a small amount of trimming to do. The fuselage is in two halves and there is internal detail moulded into the sides.
The next two bags contain wings, tail planes and ailerons. These are pre drilled for the tensioners. You’ll see the parts in the images above for the cockpit and gunner of course. The good thing is that the parts all look straight and the casting blocks look easy to remove.
Notice too the struts, these are moulded, rather obviously, around brass stiffeners. This will stop the pilot ending up with the wings around his ears!
Bags hare included that have general bits for the fuselage and also the bomb load. It is good to see that the bomb tails are separately moulded in a good scale thickness.
Moving onto the brass…
The brass includes instrument panel, harness and the stitching for the exterior of the fuselage (nice!) amongst other things.
And decals…
The decals are for two British squadrons; one of which, coincidentally, is the one my uncle served in later, 601 – see my Hurricane build.
Instructions
The instructions are done simplistically. They do, however, seem to cover everything more than adequately and I will show the rest as I build.
In summary…
A great subject! The Hart was always a favourite of mine and the fact that this can be made up as a 601 Squadron aircraft is all the better (see my Hurricane build).
My only serious criticism concerns the instructions. To say the least, they are scanty. When I told Les Venus about them his reaction was that, if you are prepared to spend £85 on a kit, you should be intelligent enough to put it together. My view is that if you have spent this sort of money, you would expect to be guided around it to avoid wasting it (literally!).
However all is not lost, after I had sweated over the assembly of the cockpit I was doing some research and found Doug Nelson’s build on the Silver Wing site and, hey presto, all was light. As he has not painted his review model, I am inclined to think that the assembly order is not quite right if you wish to do so, but at least you will know where everything goes.
I have started it and am enjoying it so far and there doesn’t seem to be too many hurdles ahead after the cockpit (that really is commentator’s curse!)
FEATURE STAR RATING (out of five)
Quality of moulding ****
Accuracy ****
Instructions **
Decals ****
Subject choice *****
Overall ****
The build will be on air soon…
Julian S.