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I hesitate to post this work in progress endeavor. Would I be given the plastic ostrakon and exiled from Britmodeller? The case is that (and again, I hesitate to make this confession) as much as I have a soft spot for old Airfix, my nostalgic heart goes to old Heller. Would it be a platitude, a common place, to state that Heller kits have a je ne sais quoi? I know, how do I dare to say these things here at Britmodeller, Airfix's vacations' home. But it is true, dearest subjects and unsubjected: Heller had a lighter, more delicate, more refined (French, after all) hand. Paradoxically, it's one of Heller's British subjects what today congregates us here: the ubiquitous De Havilland D.H.89a. Of the hundreds of models I have built, only two subjects were ever repeated: the D.H. 88 Comet (five times, three Airfix and two SBS), and the D.H. 89a (two times before, not counting this one). The first two times I built Heller's D.H.89a. the molds had plenty of flash and horrible sinkholes, and the decals left much to be desired. This box I got now, a relatively old Heller release, has fortunately no sinkholes and little flash, and the decals are, besides being a sadly bland an unappetizing choice, again not really of quality. I wanted to tackle this third build to use the newly-produced set from Arctic Decals, which includes the "metal" frames and masks for the transparencies. And also to see if many moons later I could produce a better model than the previous ones. I am not yet completely decided, but I would like to build any of the several machines that operated in Argentina under an array of successive civil transport companies. We'll see, because there also versions on wheels, floats and skis with outstanding colors and schemes. Heller's D.H.89a is one of those models that offers almost infinite possibilities regarding decoration/liveries. Provided that you do some research and can either find (aftermarket), produce or commission the decals you want. There is also plenty of free-access material on the Net about the subject and it's details, and plenty of "living" airframes, so no issues there. Anyways, here are the contents of the box. I am sure you heard the expression "shake and bake" in reference to certain kits. Well, this one certainly was pretty well shaken during the years it took to reach my building board, and half the parts were rattling around loose, facilitating the initial job of detaching the parts from the sprues: The parts. There is a full interior, cabin and cockpit: Surface detail is mainly raised: Transparencies that fortunately deserve to be called that: Some of the detail may need help: those exhausts and prop/spinners are outdated: Nice cantilever lower wing. It is a solid one-piece affair though, which precludes you from cutting and lowering those nice split flaps, unless you somehow carve them out preserving the upper surface and add ad-hoc parts: Arctic Decals set, a great help. Read the instructions as these accessories need proper handling:

I am still awaiting the arrival of my Welsh Models Albatross kit, so had another rummage around and came across this little fella. There are not a lot of parts but the masking for the paint should prove to be enough of a challenge to keep things interesting, I may even make an attempt at rigging it too.