Scale Aviation Modeller International – March 2019

Boulton Paul Deiant

by Adam Rehorn

MANUFACTURER: Airfix

SCALE: 1/72

KIT NUMBER: A02069

PARTS: 70

T

he Deiant’s box is

typical New Airix. It’s a

glossy, red, top-opening

afair and shows a Deiant day

ighter slugging it out with the

Luftwafe in the middle of a

heated air battle. Inside there

are three sprues of plastic, and

one of clear parts for the canopy

and the turret. The plastic is the

typical bluish-grey, that all of

the new Airix kits seem to be

made from. This is both good

and bad, in that it’s easy to sand

and shape, which is nice, but it’s

also a lot easier to overstress

and the plastic makes it harder

to cut small components

of of the main sprues. One

great feature is the number of

canopy/turret options. This

kit gives you almost every

possible combination! There

are separate parts for the aft-

of-turret panel to be built up

or down, and the same goes

for the aft-of-canopy panel.

The instructions are typical

of New Airix kits. They are

masterpieces, plain and simple.

There are two full-colour

painting plans, and a black

and white stencil placement

line drawing. There is a night

ighting scheme for a No.151

Squadron machine that is all

black and has a distinctive

and unusual shark mouth on

it. The second scheme, and

the one that I like better, is

for a day ighter from No.

264 Squadron in July of 1940.

I like this one because my

grandfather was in England

with the 1st RCR at the time.

Despite the aircraft’s

unusualness and unorthodox

design in real life, the Deiant

kit goes together much like

any other 1/72 World War II

ighter. Thankfully, Thus, as

one might expect, the build

starts with the cockpit and

interior of the turret bay. There

is actually a bit of detail on the

cockpit walls, deinitely not

something I’m used to seeing

on most kits in this price range.

To augment the texturing on

the cockpit walls, there are two

pieces, one per side, that glue

onto the walls for even more

detailing. The location of these

parts is critical for when the

cockpit and fuselage halves

come together, so alignment

is important. Thankfully,

everything just falls into place.

I glued these pieces in place

before painting. The rest of the

cockpit is made up of a loor

section to which a seat, some

very ine and inicky rudder

pedals and the back bulkhead

are attached. The instrument

panel actually its into the

aircraft separately from the

cockpit loor, unlike some other

kits in this scale. Despite all

the good features, there are

a couple little issues that dog

this kit. One is that there are no

seatbelts. Nothing is moulded

onto the seat, and there isn’t a

decal provided. The other issue

is that of the instrument panel

itself. The only representation

of it is a decal. I painted the

entire interior, and that of the

turret bay, in Testors Model

Master Acrylic (MMA) RAF

Interior Green. I painted the

various electronics boxes in

black and then applied some

Citadel Nuln Oil wash to bring

up the detail on the green

bits. I also added some light

wear and tear. The cockpit was

then installed along with the

‘shelf’ and turret mounting

ring, which were painted the

same way as the cockpit.

The fuselage halves go

together without much efort,

and while the fuselage dried, I

installed the one-piece landing

gear bays into the lower wing.

The bays it extremely well,

and there’s no issue mating

the tops and bottoms of the

wings, either. Unfortunately,

the matching of the fuselage

halves is not as good as it is

for the wings. To get rid of

48 MARCH 2019 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL

KIT REVIEWS