Mr Bowcat
SMF Supporter
Morning Chaps,
I made a start on this over the weekend. Obligatory what's in the box shots first.
Despite the Finnish marking on the box art, the kit contains markings for V6665 as flown by Flight Commander John Kent (or Kentowski as he was sometimes referred to by his Polish Comrades) of 303 Squadron based at Northolt, which is what I will be building. I chose this as Northolt air base is only a couple of miles from where I live.
On to the kit. This is a limited run kit from Fly, and having done my research I've gone into it eyes open as to its foibles. The instructions are reported to be fairly useless (they are), the kit lacks any form of locating pins (it does) and the plastic is very brittle (it is). What I wasn't expecting is it's resistance to TET. I've found it best to dab some on the mating surfaces and wait a few seconds for the plastic to soften before putting the parts together. They then need to be held for a while and left to dry for a good few minutes.
Due to the lack of locating pins I decided to get the firewall glued to one half of the fuselage first as this will provide the first reference point for installing the cockpit. Plasticard was added to this and the shelves on the cockpit sides to aid location.
I then moved on to the tubular framework of the cockpit. The brittleness of the plastic became apparent here as I broke both the control column and the foot pedals. Luckily I managed to clean up the actual framework without damage. Every single tube had two mold lines, so careful scraping was the order of the day. As promised, the instructions were useless and ignored. If you follow the Fly build order, the control column and linkages should be fitted first, followed by the tub sides and finally the triangular brace. However if built in this order it's impossible to add the triangle as it goes around the control linkages! Instead I built up the 4 tubular parts first, then added everything else afterwards.
I'm going to try to add some extra detail to the cockpit, so some lead wire was used on the control column to simulate the hydraulic line, and I decided the PE panel that hangs from the framework on the pilots left side was too flat and 2d, so I opted to add some additional details. This may not be completely accurate but I think it will add some interest.
I made a start on this over the weekend. Obligatory what's in the box shots first.
Despite the Finnish marking on the box art, the kit contains markings for V6665 as flown by Flight Commander John Kent (or Kentowski as he was sometimes referred to by his Polish Comrades) of 303 Squadron based at Northolt, which is what I will be building. I chose this as Northolt air base is only a couple of miles from where I live.
On to the kit. This is a limited run kit from Fly, and having done my research I've gone into it eyes open as to its foibles. The instructions are reported to be fairly useless (they are), the kit lacks any form of locating pins (it does) and the plastic is very brittle (it is). What I wasn't expecting is it's resistance to TET. I've found it best to dab some on the mating surfaces and wait a few seconds for the plastic to soften before putting the parts together. They then need to be held for a while and left to dry for a good few minutes.
Due to the lack of locating pins I decided to get the firewall glued to one half of the fuselage first as this will provide the first reference point for installing the cockpit. Plasticard was added to this and the shelves on the cockpit sides to aid location.
I then moved on to the tubular framework of the cockpit. The brittleness of the plastic became apparent here as I broke both the control column and the foot pedals. Luckily I managed to clean up the actual framework without damage. Every single tube had two mold lines, so careful scraping was the order of the day. As promised, the instructions were useless and ignored. If you follow the Fly build order, the control column and linkages should be fitted first, followed by the tub sides and finally the triangular brace. However if built in this order it's impossible to add the triangle as it goes around the control linkages! Instead I built up the 4 tubular parts first, then added everything else afterwards.
I'm going to try to add some extra detail to the cockpit, so some lead wire was used on the control column to simulate the hydraulic line, and I decided the PE panel that hangs from the framework on the pilots left side was too flat and 2d, so I opted to add some additional details. This may not be completely accurate but I think it will add some interest.
