Price around €170.00 direct from the manufacturer.
Review by Julian Seddon
The Walrus meets the carpenter
You will see what I mean.
Not quite RJ Mitchell’s moment, but what was designed for the Australian Navy for cruiser launch turned out to be the plane thrown off a multitude of the ships of the navy in the early part of the war.
There is a short history of the aircraft in the instructions so I will tell only one rather sad tale about it. A Walrus was sent in June 1940 to rescue De Gaulle’s family from Carentac in France. In foggy conditions it was blown off course and the pilot corrected his position only to crash land in a field with the loss of the whole crew. After some further adventures De Gaulle’s family finally made it to Britain on the 18th June, blissfully unaware of the attempts being made to rescue them.
Of course the aircraft went on to be the workhorse of the navy for some time.
The HpH Models kit
HpH who produce this kit are in the Czech Republic and from start to finish the delivery was in 5 days, impressive service.
This is a big expensive kit – impressive! For certain, you will need no aftermarket for this, so this cost, albeit great, is the only cost barring paint glue and masking tape.
So here we go.
The box is brightly coloured but looked a bit bent when I received it. However inside all was well and cushioned adequately by plenty of bubble wrap.
There is a disk for the instructions
Now, based on my review of the Resicast Comet I knew that this meant a lot of pages. 42 is the number and I have printed them all out! Wasn’t 42 the answer to the meaning of it all in Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy?! I think I will find the meaning of life after this.
These instructions are in Czech and English but they are mostly pictorial and I will be showing you some of the pages as I progress with the build. As with all instructions it is a question of identifying the parts and although these do look superbly clear I will be commenting as I go along.
This is a resin kit, apart from the very small amount of brass (which is marked as coming from Eduard by the way) so I will show you the many sprues whilst still on their mounts.
The Fuselage
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I have raised the contrast in this photo to show the very delicate riveting and the subtle modelling of the other surface details; really excellent. Most of these craft were fairly bumped and bruised during their service so there may be a few dents appearing here and there!
The fuselage interior comes with a lot of the ribbing already in place just as well as there are mountains of other items to fit in here. So this really is a time saver. Having had a quick look at the plans related to this I get the impression that they are very clear about the positioning for the interior parts. Good close up photos of a completed model help a lot.