The Little World

Make no mistake about it. When a gift-giving date approaches I do not hesitate to go down to the hobby shop and either reserve a kit or buy one outright. Then the gift-givers can go and pay for it or refund me. Charity begins at home and I know where I live.

The Pe-2 is a Mister Craft Kit – and of course I long ago swore never to trust them again. So here we after Father’s Day with four new Mister Craft kits in the stash. The prices were irresistible and the recent experience with the Potez 540 positive. I am going to keep myself in suspense – opening and building only one at a time. Thus I cannot focus bitterly on any one flaw.

The Petlyakov kit doesn’t seem to have many flaws. And there is a reason for this: one of the sprue trees has a big plastic identity plate on it. On one side it says  ” made in Russia ” and on the other is the Zvezda logo. The Mister Craft firm did not even bother to disguise it. Maybe they have to hand the mould back to Zvezda when they are done.

There’s very little flash on the sprue trees and the canopy tree is clear as a bell. I like the canopy frames as well. Curiously, though there isn’t much inside the fuselage, it is also free of ejector pin marks.

The decal sheets are small, but there are two of them and you get a fair spread of users. I am going to opt for the Polish scheme as squares are less likely to beak up when being floated off the paper. I’ll still put on a coat of Micro Scale decal film, though.

The instructions are really well done – colour callouts and schemes and clear indications on part placement. There’s not much in the cockpit but that’s fine. The landing gear is superb.