The Little World

I have been looking for a 1:72 scale model of this aircraft for years – and wouldn’t you know – one turned up at a swap meet sale a few weeks ago.

It may not be the Monogram Four-Start Plastikit of my youth, but it is a perfectly good Czech MPM model sealed in it’s original bag. I shall have all the trials and rewards of a short-run kit, but the Yellow-Wing Navy will finally have a biplane fighter.

The kit plastic is one sprue tree…looking quite clean – three bits of resin – and an injected canopy. There is a metal instrument panel and a clear set of dials for it. No pilot, and the canopy is single-piece.

The marking are pure USN 30’s and mean that there will be bands needed as separate paint panels for the top of the wing, fuselage, cowling, and tail. I prefer this idea to the complex topographies of decal sheets. They never seem to settle just right. It’ll be a battle between RANGER and SARATOGA as to which tail to use – but I’ll see what the rest of the YWN planes are wearing.