Kit ref: A08015
Price around: £30.99GBP; $38.55US; €36.10; $51.55AUS
Review by Geoff Coughlin (November 2016)
See our FINISHED NOW BUILD REVIEW
Since expanding to now include civilian aircraft too in SMN (Sept 2016) this new-tool release by Airfix just had to be bought and built and I’m half way through it as I type. In fact, this kit has made an appearance in military guise, the Douglas C-47 Skytrain a little while back and I built that as soon as we got it – what an impressive kit this is – great engineering and fit of parts (the first time around at least).
Here are a few links before we get started to help you:
My full build of the C-47 Douglas Skytrain
Full Here Now in-box review for the C-47 Skytrain
I was seriously impressed with the C-47 release and I like the way it turned out…
For a much fuller review of this kit just click the above hyperlink and you’ll go to my first full in-box review. So this is really a complimentary comment on what’s new, plus a few thoughts on the initial part of the build of this new release.
The kit is pretty much identical to the first kit, save of course this time we have new decals for two civilian operators – Dan Air Services and BOAC, even if the latter is in its wartime livery of 1942 and hence camouflaged! Personally I would have liked one of the overseas operators in a more ‘traditional’ civilian scheme – heaven knows there were enough of them!
Decals
The new decals are well printed and for me the Dan Air Services machine provides a great opportunity to try and achieve that chrome-like natural metal finish (NMF) on much of the underside and tail section of the airframe. You can see how that goes in the full build that is to follow shortly, so keep an eye on What’s New and Aircraft-Build Now for that.
Details
The kit is full of very nice detail and highlights include:
- undercarriage units and wheels
- internal detail for cockpit and cabin, although no seating in rows is included, just the bench seating down the sides of the aircraft
- positionable control surfaces
- recessed panel line detail
- tight-fitting canopy glazing that didn’t need any glue to hold it on the C-47 release
- clever separate wing root inserts.