The Little World

About two, as it happened. And part of the time was spent making beef pies in the kitchen. This aircraft kit is a fair way shy of the 1000-piece puzzle…

But the pieces that do exist are rewarding. Well-shaped, and with few flaws. The wings and fuselage went together with the kind of precision that I wish existed in Prague, and the trailing edges are fine and even things. This is a far cut above the Eastern European products.

Yet I think it might be in almost the same class as the ones that flooded out of the old Soviet Union – because I suspect that the mould started life in the Airfix factory. But did it? This product has engraved panel lines – a little deep, but clean nevertheless. Did the Airfix product have raised or engraved? I need a plastic kit historian to fill in the details.

The cockpit is a floor, a bulkhead, and a seat. Nothing else. Not even a dashboard. But when you try the thing in place dry, there is nothing to be seen from outside anyway…so I just airbrushed a grey coat and proceeded to close the fuselage. It went together seamlessly.

The wings dropped together ditto. MEK sealed them all up and eventually the assembly could be tried together. A couple of even trenches either side of the wing roots, but these will fill in with Vallejo liquid acrylic putty.

There is no engine as such, but the massive size of the propeller spinner spinner fills the cowling anyway.

And the tanks and stores are of decent quality. I’ll leave the rockets off unless I can see photographic evidence of them having been fitted to the Pakistani aircraft.