The Little World

Well, I wasn’t wrong about the origin of the model – but I noted some interesting features on the sprue trees. Some were perfect and some were not. A Forrest Gump box of chocolates, indeed.

The fuselage and wings are wonderful. The tail plane likewise. The design features a set of long tabs that lock each wing into the opposite side of the fuselage as well as the wing root – and the fit at the root is excellent. This is a plane that will be solid when cemented – no fears about misalignment.

The engines are adequate – the crew and the cockpit as detailed as need be – but the engine cowlings are something else. They are two-part, depict prominent air scoops and ducts, but appear to be a re-make of what might have been before. They are, quite frankly, blobby.

I am going to need to assemble them carefully then re-scribe the features and recut the scoops. The moulding is such that the original Eastern Express scheme of a silver-painted French aircraft would have been horrible. Shiny silver reveals flaws. I’m planning matt camouflage to make these areas less prominent, but there’ll still be a fair bit of filling and reshaping anyway.

I plan this as a flying model on a stand – and am grateful that Eastern Express have moulded retracted wheels in covers as an option. They forgot the centre-line seam where the doors meet but this is a simple straight line to scribe.