Skale Wings Douglas AD-5W AEW 1/72

hsr · November 16, 2018

This is my 1/72 Skale Wings Douglas AD-5W Airborne Early Warning (AEW) aircraft. This is the first kit from the new company Skale Wings, and unfortunately it shows. The first word that popped into my mind after looking at the sprues was "crude" and it is not for the faint of heart or easily discouraged. I would place it one peg above Mach 2, but just barely.

The canopy for this first version of the kit is inaccurate for the -5W in that the -5W has bulges over the radar operators compartment and this kit did not. However to their credit their later folded wings conversion for this kit has a corrected canopy so I purchased that, almost doubling the price of the kit. They now have a complete folded wings kit, and I am assuming that it comes with the correct canopy so I would recommend purchasing it instead of the non folding wings one. The quality of the parts in the conversion seemed to be slightly better also.

The decal sheet, which is excellent, contains nice decals for the interior instruments. The seats are made up of 5 parts: a seat cushion, back rest and 2 sides. I you add the 2 side pieces to the seats they will not fit between the consoles so I left them off. The back rests are a little too high and bump against the canopy so needed a little sanding. I added some seat belts. Unfortunately you can't see any of this in my pictures because of humidity build up on the interior of the windows. This will clear up in a day or 2, but I don't have the patience to wait. I tried hitting it with a hair dryer and that cleared them up, but in the time it took to grab the camera it was back.

So here are the pictures: