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Brewster Buffalo (A02050v) 1:72 Airfix Vintage Classics The Buffalo was designed by the Brewster Aeronautical Corporation in 1935 to a US Navy requirement for a carrier-based fighter to replace the Grumman F3F biplane. The prototype first flew in 1937, and the initial customer, the US Navy didn’t like what it saw, so curtailed their orders, and further deliveries were diverted to secondary operators. The type received orders from several overseas customers such as Belgium, who had ordered the aircraft but received only one before the country fell to the advancing Nazis. That order was subsequently transferred to the British, who sent them to Australia and New Zealand, as well as using them for the RAF in the Far East, where it was plagued with reliability problems in the hot, humid climate. Performance was poor and the pilots did not have adequate training on the aircraft, which sent its already awful reputation into a further nose-dive. The Finns however made great use of theirs, casting doubt on the epithet “worst fighter of WWII” that has proliferated over the years, but then the Finns also thrashed the Soviets in the Winter War using similarly second line, borrowed and captured equipment. The Kit This is a reboxing of the old tooling under the Vintage Classics branding, having started its life in 1972, suffocating in a bag under a header card, most likely on a rotating rack in Woolworths or your local newsagent. It arrives in a small top-opening box, and inside are two sprues plus four individual parts on their own runners in grey styrene, a separately bagged clear sprue, the decal sheet and instruction booklet in A4 fold-out style with spot colour throughout. The sprues are small and without a protective runner around some of the edges, so take care when pulling it from the bag to prevent damage or loss of parts. The kit is surprisingly well-preserved considering it’s almost as old as I am, with a few raised panel lines, and the majority of the exterior surface covered in neat runs of raised rivets, while the flying surfaces have a subdued material texture where appropriate, all of which is worth saving if you can, so get the alignment right when putting the major assemblies together. It must have been quite an impressive sight in 1972. Construction consists of just five steps, as there are only 42 parts on the sprues, but then it’s a small aircraft in a relatively small scale, so that’s unsurprising. Construction begins with the U-shaped cockpit floor, which has the pilot’s seat plugged into a turret near the rear, seating the pilot that’s twiddling his thumbs in his lap, as usual. Before installing the cockpit in the lower wing part, a greenhouse window is inserted into a large gap in the floor that assisted the pilot when bombing and strafing, allowing him to see through the floor below him. The two upper wings are glued over the lower, and have the tips, part of the leading edge and the trailing edges moulded into the uppers to achieve a sharper edge. The fuselage is made up from two halves after painting the cockpit sides interior green. A tubular tank is glued to the shelf behind the pilot, and a simple tubular sight is fixed to the cowling in front of the cockpit, adding the elevators and arrestor hook at the rear. The gunsight is optional, and informs your decision on which of the windscreen parts to use, the slotted part accommodating the sight. The canopy opener and rear are both separate and all have good clarity. I’m not going to say “for their age”, as the clarity is good. Simply good. The fuselage is dropped onto the lower wing, which also has a short section of the underside and the main gear bay recesses moulded into it, and taking care to align these parts carefully should reduce clean-up later. The engine is a single part, with just a few slips of flash to give away its age, and the two-part cowling is closed around it, adding a lip to the front that attaches on a substantial flange. The prop and its moulded-in shaft are slipped through the centre of the engine and secured at the rear by gluing a washer the back, then topping it off with a spinner before mounting the cowled engine to the fuselage, adding the radio mast to the starboard side in front of the cockpit for maximum lack of visibility. Inverting the model and avoiding breaking off the mast, the landing gear is made next, starting with a choice of a faired or bare strut moulded into the tail-wheel at the rear. The main struts retract into the wing, stowing the wheels in the depressions moulded into the fuselage, adding a captive bay door to the struts along with a retraction jack. The wheels are held on the axles by their hubs, which are separate and insert into the hollow centre of the wheel. Markings There are two options on the decal sheet, in markedly different schemes that show the Buffalo at war, and in the innocence before it, unbeknownst to them. From the box you can build one of the following: No.67 Sqn., RAF, Mingaladon, Rangun, Burma, early 1942 Third Section Leader, US Navy Fighter Sqn. VF-2, USS Lexington, 1941 Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness, and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas. Conclusion Given the vintage of the moulds, she’s looking good for her age, and the barrel-like stubbiness of the type is quite appealing. Highly recommended, bearing in mind it’s a 1970s kit. 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