The Little World

If ever there was an example of successful box art it must surely be this Italeri 1:72 Vickers Wellington Mk IC – successful for me and for the hobby shop. The end flap illustration caught my eye in Hearn’s Hobbies in Melbourne and I was sold as soon as I slid the box down off the shelf. Again, I rarely consider making a model exactly as per the illustration, but the drama and feeling of this one  determined me straight off.

There may be inaccuracies in this kit – it is an MPM moulding imported and boxed by Italeri – and I’m sure that Britmodeller and Scalemates can probably dig up someone who has found all the flaws…but I don’t care. This will be the first model I’ve built that has a Polish squadron insignia but that isn’t what grabbed me – it was the fantastic geodesic structure pattern that is revealed in the illustration – and that is recaptured in the mouldings.

The box illustration shows a Wellington attacking a U-boat and is posed in back light so that the wet surface of the wings shows up the structure. I know that the paintwork for this era had a matte finish, but I am wondering about semi-gloss to get the pattern in the wings and fuselage to show up better. We’ll just have to pretend that the aircraft is wet from spray.

The sprue trees reveal a pretty good set of parts, but there are going to be worrisome times with the multipart gun turrets. Cementing clear styrene parts without fogging is hard to do. Fortunately the main canopy fits well…we’ll have to see whether the gunner’s positions can be made to look good or whether I’m going to have to fair them in and make a different plane.

At least the dry fit shows that the wing roots have a positive seat between wing and fuselage and there is a locating tongue. Ditto the tail planes. And the landing gear struts show promise of being sturdy enough to hold the weight.

My choice of the models will the 304 Sqn in Coastal Command colours.