Reviewed by Adam Brown
Our thanks to Heritage Aviation Models Ltd for supplying our review sample. Get this kit here now at: http://www.heritageaviationmodelsltd.com/
Some background…
The Slingsby T.7 Kirby Cadet is a British training glider (sailplane) designed and built by Slingsby that first flew in 1935 and saw service with the Royal Air Force for use by the Air Training Corps as the Cadet TX.1 throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s. The T.7 was developed to specification 20/43 from the civilian Kirby Kadet to meet an Air Ministry requirement for a training glider as part of the air cadet programme, and it entered service as the Cadet TX.1 with the Royal Air Force. It was further developed with a change of wing into the T.8 Kirby Tutor (service name Cadet TX.2) which in turn was developed into a two-seat version the T.31B Tandem Tutor (service name Cadet TX.3). Taken from Wikipedia: http://www.wikipedia.org/
The Kit…
I was given this little fella at the IPMS Nationals on Sunday, following a chat with Ian at Heritage Aviation. Much to my surprise, I chose to write about and build this little beauty, now for all of you who don’t know, I build 1/32nd kits normally (thanks to Les and James) and this kit is about as big as a 32nd scale sidewinder missile! Enough with all the moaning, size is not everything!
This is the box and its contents. The kit is well presented in a clear plastic blister with an A4 instruction sheet with a brief history of the glider, along with the 6 resin parts, some of which will require the removal of the resin casting blocks – and 2 vacform canopies.
One of the resin parts is for the wing struts, of which you have to make four; this is probably the most challenging part of the whole process along with trimming out the canopy.
There are no decals included in the kit, as it mentions that information regarding the colour schemes are hard to locate.
This kit is recommended to all of you out there as it’s an ideal stress reliever for those wishing to just chill out and build something a little different!
Adam B.