Pavla Miles Messenger

[lasermonkey]

Hi,

I recently acquired my fourth Pavla Messenger for a reasonable price off eBay and decided to get right to it. Having built (and thoroughly enjoyed) their Typhoon ( I like a challenge!), I had some idea of what I was in for.

I managed to find some drawings for a Messenger I off the interweb and it compares pretty favourably with it, apart from a wingspan which is a few mm longer. I haven't checked against published figures as yet, but will do at some point.

I believe that this was one of Pavla's earlier kits, but it still goes together reasonably well. That it, things fit if you make them fit. I had to make a jig to sand the correct dihedral onto the wingroots, something I'll be using a lot more of in future! The fuselage sidewalls needed a lot of thinning down to get the resin cockpit to fit but again. it's not difficult and didn't really take that long. The cockpit opening had to be extended rearwards bey several mm to get the vac canopy to fit, but once done it seemed to match the drawing. The vac canopy is a perfect fit, BTW. Always nice when that happens!

What else? I had to reduce the height of the central fin/rudder as it was much too tall. That's about as far as I've got so far.

I've actually been building this at work, as the hobby room has been stashed away in boxes for a couple of years (although we are working on the hobby room as I type) and although I have limited tools, it certainly makes you creative with what you do have!

Anyway, here's a few (somewhat poor) pics taken with my moblie phone camera:

Oh yes, I forgot to mention! This will be done as G-AKIN, in its fetching red and off-white paint job. This is one of the decal choices provided.

All in all, a nice little kit which is not likely to be done by anybody else.

[Tango India Mike]

Hi,

I recently acquired my fourth Pavla Messenger for a reasonable price off eBay and decided to get right to it. Having built (and thoroughly enjoyed) their Typhoon ( I like a challenge!), I had some idea of what I was in for.

I managed to find some drawings for a Messenger I off the interweb and it compares pretty favourably with it, apart from a wingspan which is a few mm longer. I haven't checked against published figures as yet, but will do at some point.

I believe that this was one of Pavla's earlier kits, but it still goes together reasonably well. That it, things fit if you make them fit. I had to make a jig to sand the correct dihedral onto the wingroots, something I'll be using a lot more of in future! The fuselage sidewalls needed a lot of thinning down to get the resin cockpit to fit but again. it's not difficult and didn't really take that long. The cockpit opening had to be extended rearwards bey several mm to get the vac canopy to fit, but once done it seemed to match the drawing. The vac canopy is a perfect fit, BTW. Always nice when that happens!

What else? I had to reduce the height of the central fin/rudder as it was much too tall. That's about as far as I've got so far.

I've actually been building this at work, as the hobby room has been stashed away in boxes for a couple of years (although we are working on the hobby room as I type) and although I have limited tools, it certainly makes you creative with what you do have!

Anyway, here's a few (somewhat poor) pics taken with my moblie phone camera:

Oh yes, I forgot to mention! This will be done as G-AKIN, in its fetching red and off-white paint job. This is one of the decal choices provided.

All in all, a nice little kit which is not likely to be done by anybody else.

[Tango India Mike]

Ah yes, I have this kit too, also destined for the civvy scheme. I might even finish the half-built Aeroclub kit alongside it (also a nice kit if you aren't afraid of vac-forms) - I suppose at least one of them ought to be done as Monty's runabout. I'll watch this one with interest.

Cheers!

Tim.