The Little World

I recently asked my daughter to pick me up a fresh model kit when she passed through Melbourne. There are several good shops there and she might encounter something new.

Well, she was taken by something old – an Airfix vintage Classic re-issue of a 1965 kit – the Handley Page HP.42 ” Heracles ” airliner. As I have recently given the green light to 1/144 scale building this was quite in the spirit of the thing – and I have never built this kit before.

Note: That’s becoming a thing with me – as I fill up the shelves of my 1/72 Air World with various aircraft, i run into the problem of a lack of novelty. Our local shops sell plenty of Messerstangfire kits but you can really only build so may variants before they become pointless. I am drawn to the new-to-me.

Well, it is pure Airfix 1960’s with sprue trees that contain as much styrene as the parts they feed – and are chunkier than bridge supports. There are sink marks and ejector pin marks. The canopy is ” sturdy “. But the basic structure of the wings is detailed and the tops and bottoms fit precisely. And there is very little flash on the kit.

The decal sheet is newly-drawn and freshly printed, and so simple as to raise confidence that it may go on with no silvering…on a silver surface…