Model Forum / General / Models / February 2010

Well, I've finally managed to get my hands on one of these...'little
beauties' isn't the right phrase; it isn't the largest plastic aircraft kit
ever, but it's one of the biggest I've ever seen. The box is 27 x 16 x 6
inches, and it's full to the brim. This was part of the third batch which
arrived at my local model shop, but everything prior to this lot had been
pre-ordered, which is around 130 kits.

As I was lifting the sprues out of the box, I was surprised to find that
only the mainwheel tyres appeared to be moulded in rubber - there was no
sign of the tailwheel tyre there. However I found a separate rubber sprue
elsewhere in the box with not only the tailwheel tyre but also four
mysterious bracket-shaped pieces. It took me a while to track them down in
the instruction booklet (which is the size of a tabloid newspaper and 52
pages long) - turns out they're the ammo feeds for the nose cannon, and
they're in rubber because they have a ninety-degree twist between ammo boxes
and the cannons themselves. (The mainwheel tyres, by the way, have flattened
and spread bottoms to simulate the weight of the aircraft. I know this is
common on aftermarket parts but it's the first time I've seen it on the
original kit.)

There is a lot of interior detail, down to the label on the fire
extinguisher. The interior framing for the cockpit canopy is supplied as a
separate part, which makes painting infinitely easier. The crew entry hatch
can be shown open or closed - if you choose the open option then the access
ladder can be set against the side of the aircraft.

Four crew figures are provided - two seated in the cockpit, plus one
standing and one with one foot on the access ladder.

All in all, a lovely kit - Airfix have put a lot of work into this, and it
shows. But the fact that my local model shop has shifted 130 of them in just
a few weeks shows that there is a demand for kits of this standard, so
hopefully we'll see more in future.

I suspect that not many of these kits have yet found their way across the
Atlantic as there has been little or no discussion of the kit on this group.
I'd be interested to see what others think - I'm a keen rather than
enthusiastic modeller (so why did I shell out £130 on this kit? I don't know
either!) and don't have anything to compare it to. (Yes, I know there aren't
any other 1/24 Mosquitoes on the market, but you know what I mean...)