The Little World

This Airfix kit was thin on the shelves when first released – it was scheduled to hit the world during the first of the Covid 19 shut-downs.

A friend found the first four or so to arrive in Perth and secured one for me – and it sat quietly while I sorted out what treatment I would accord to it. In the end the RCAF option won out – and it is destined to join the 32 OTU at Doukhobor Bay in British Columbia.

It looks like there is the option to carry the torpedo or not, but even if you do not mount it, the dropping gear is quite visible in the bay. I have contemporary photos showing one training drop and the rest of the time spent on the apron or banged to a halt off the runway.

The kit is top of the mark Airfix; I have found no sink marks and only 1 mm of flash about the tailwheel well. The design of the kit is such that they will be making more marks of the aircraft and have elected to mould a fairing around the turret that doesn’t actually appear on the Mk I. It is marked as a knife or file trim – the Airfix plastic makes this an easy and precise job. Other than this, it’ll be an OOTB build.

The RAF markings are superb, but I’ll obviously be attaching Canadian codes. Fortunately at this time the RCAF followed European fonts so I have the ingredients in the decal spares box. Also fortunately they were not keen on over-painting everything.

Noted the squashed tyres on the sprue trees, as well as the handed nacelles and tailplanes.

And the new red/brown printing for the instruction booklet. Airfix are the industry leaders in this sort of communication – even when they do not say a word. The ” easter egg ” pilot figure era seems to be going on – this chap looks permanently surprised.

But who is he…?