Scale Aviation Modeller International — November 2017

technology in producing complex

shapes. There is in particular,

some overlapping between

the two PE sets I used, which

necessitates some planning.

Inevitably, construction begins

with the interior of the fuselage,

firstly the cockpit. Here the first

choice of medium needs to be

made – the base kit provides some

very nice resin seats, complete

with moulded belts and armrests,

while the Eduard detail set offers

folded brass for what are rather

intricate seat assemblies. The

brass definitely takes the prize

in terms of actual detail, but

also represents significantly

more work and arguably, only a

minor increment in visible detail

when everything is closed up.

Ever the optimist, I went for

the brass, painting the whole

cockpit Mr. Hobby Interior Green,

H58, and adding some chipping

using a tiny piece of plastic foam

dipped in Vallejo Aluminium.

The instructions would have you

sand off the relief detail from

the instrument panel to fit the

Eduard PE, but I took an easier

approach and cut a new panel

from plastic card. The resin

passenger seats were painted on

their casting blocks and carefully

sawn free – be careful here, as

the armrests are extremely fragile

and I lost several in the process.

I used grey for the frames and

Vallejo Leather Brown for the seats.

A rather neat touch is the inclusion

of decals for the belts on each

seat, although not much can be

seen with the fuselage complete.

There’s a fair bit of work

involved in preparing the fuselage

halves: some nasty knockout marks

must be removed if the access doors

are to be left open, and the circular

window apertures each need to be

eased slightly to get a reasonable

fit for the individual circular clear

windows. The instructions call for

two of the moulded windows on

the starboard side to be filled, and

a new window opened aft, which

needs care to match the exterior

panel detail. A word of warning,

do not do what I did and use two of

the clear windows to fill the pair at

the front! You’ll run out of windows

and have to scratch-build one from

clear sheet for the door window.

The fuselage interior, cabin

floor, and rear bulkheads were

now painted interior green, and

the crew jump seats in the rear

compartment picked out in leather

brown. Before the interior is

installed, there are some PE guards

to be fitted to some of the windows.

I used Johnsons’ Klear to stick

them on after painting them green.

The fuselage closes around the

interior with only minor easing

of the front floor and bulkhead,

although if the forward deck is

The interior ready to be closed up. The two central

bulkheads that support the wing pylon should have a

personnel passageway through them.

There’s some overlap in the options for detailing between

the two Eduard PE sets and the resin parts. Here, the

Eduard etched seats (from 72642) are used in place of the

entirely adequate resin seats supplied in the kit.

The Eduard etched wheel bay interiors are justification

in themselves for getting hold of the set.

The cockpit builds up neatly, although the

fine brass detail needs a steady hand.

In position, the etched wheel bays really look the part.

22 • NOVEMBER 2017 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL

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