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ike something out of the Ark, but
it was a superb supply dropper,”
said Royal Air Force Air Chief
Marshal Sir Robert Freer, describ-
ing Blackburn’s Beverley. A thing of beauty,
well...no, but a design of practicality, the
transport could carry 30 paratroops in the
tail boom who bailed out of a belly hatch
just forward of the tail, and 40 on its main
deck who exited side doors.
MikroMir’s Beverley features recessed
panel lines, a nice flight deck, main deck
interior detail, and the option of open or
closed rear clamshell doors. A fret of 11
photo-etched metal (PE) parts and a set of
masks are included.
Flash on the larger parts was easily
removed but it proved more of a hindrance
on small ones.
The fuselage halves lack locating pins, so
I used scrap plastic zipper tabs for strength
and alignment.
The wings and tail fit well. To
strengthen the wing-to-fuselage joints, I
inserted a short piece of Evergreen styrene
tube through the fuselage to act as a stub
spar.
The inboard engine nacelles needed filler
where they joined the wings’ undersides. To
get a good fit between nacelles and cowl-
ings, I reamed out the cowls slightly.
The wheel hubs lack sharply-defined
rims, so brush-painting the tires took a lit-
tle extra time.
The PE was nicely done but, in this
scale, it was pretty fragile. I omitted the PE
anti-flail piping attached to the lower rear
of the plane. (They were was fitted during
airdrops to prevent static lines whipping
around and beating the plane.)
The propellers were the most difficult
part of the build.
There are noprop shafts, just nubs on the aft side of the
backplates, and no holes in the “engine
fronts” for them, either. Flash on the spin-
ners made refining them difficult, and the
spinners, backplates, and fragile propellers
simply didn’t fit together very well; their
frailty and size made filling and sanding
tedious. There’s no need to detail the
Centaurus engine “fronts” because the spin-
ners hide them anyway.
Of the three markings options, I chose
No. 84 Squadron’s desert camouflage for
my model. The decals are excellent but the
“Middle East” legend intended to be
applied forward of the fuselage roundels
was misspelled as “Midle.” Unable to find
two matching white D’s in my decal stash
to correct the error, I left those off.
The kit and instructions omit the real
aircraft’s prominent propeller blade cuffs
and de-icers; I used black decal film to sim-
ulate them. The fuselage “porthole” win-
dows are decal dots and look fine in this
scale. The masks left residue behind after
removal so a little touch-up was needed.
One of my go-to references was The
Beverley Association’s website (http://www.
beverley-association.org.uk/html/photos/
stories.htm) whose members have posted
great photographs — and even greater sto-
ries.
My interest in the subject
matter easily trumped myfrustration with the kit’s irritating small
parts. Overall, I enjoyed the project, though
it took me a little longer to build than a
comparable subject and I’d recommend it to
more experienced builders.- Walt Fink
MikroMir
Blackburn
Beverley
Kit: No. 144-008 Scale: 1/144
Mfr.: MikroMir, mikro-mir.com Price: $31
Comments: Injection-molded, 111 parts
(11 PE), decals, masks Pros: Great decals;
good interior detail; historically impor-
tant RAF subject Cons: Excess flash on
small parts; no locating aids in places;
propeller assemblies tedious to build“