The Little World

Trawling through the hobby shop one day I decided to take home a Czech kit of a single -engine US observation plane.

All was well until I looked at the parts that were to have made up the canopy and wing support. Someone in the factory had packed two right sides – and no left side. Un-buildable, and probably no spare parts. Back to the shop it went.

To use up the cash already spent I looked for a price-tag that matched – and found this Ukrainian kit. It depicts an Avia aircraft, but the prototype was the dear old Soviet Tupolev SB2. There were a lot of cross-border aircraft in those days.

My use for it is to be as a Chinese bomber of the 1937-45 war. My list of RoCAF aircraft specifically lists it and gives the squadrons. This is also borne out by ICM doing a version of it in their older catalogue. I’ll just discard the Axis decal sheet and draw the RoCAF suns and stripes out of my spares box.

There are more than enough parts on the sprue trees to fully equip it – multiple bomb loads and even Soviet winter skis. Mine will be wheeled, of course, but I hope that this time I can depict it with some of the canopy open. I’ll also choose a camouflage scheme as opposed to the solid colours used on other RoCAF models in my collection.

I’ve built an SB2 before in Spanish Republican colours – it was a dear old FROG kit re-boxed by Novo in the Soviet days. Unique, but horrible – definitely a model for the back of the cabinet. I have no qualms about this ICM offering – already the sprue trees look good and there doesn’t seem to be too much flash.

Sometimes you can luck out – from bad to good.