1/72 - Airco/de Havilland DH.9A & Polikarpov R-1 by Kovozávody Prostějov (KP) - released

[Homebee]

Kovozávody Prostějov (KP) is to release 1/72nd de Havilland DH.9A & Polikarpov R-1 kits.

Probably a plastic injected kit inspired by the CMR resin kit.

 

- ref. KPM72310 - de Havilland DH.9A - At War

Sources: 

https://www.aviationmegastore.com/de-havilland-dh-9a-at-war-kovozvody-prostejov-kpm72310-aircraft-scale-modelling/product/?action=prodinfo&art=186279

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/KPM72310

 

 

 

- ref. KPM72311 - de Havilland DH.9A - RAF

Sources: 

https://www.aviationmegastore.com/de-havilland-dh-9a-raf-kovozvody-prostejov-kpm72311-aircraft-scale-modelling/product/?action=prodinfo&art=186280

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/KPM72311

 

 

 

- ref. KPM72312 - de Havilland DH.9A - Silver Wings

Sources: 

https://www.aviationmegastore.com/de-havilland-dh-9a--silver-wings-kovozvody-prostejov-kpm72312-aircraft-scale-modelling/product/?action=prodinfo&art=186281

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/KPM72312

 

 

 

- ref. KPM72313 - Polikarpov R-1

Sources: 

https://www.aviationmegastore.com/polikarpov-r-1-kovozvody-prostejov-kpm72313-aircraft-scale-modelling/product/?action=prodinfo&art=186282

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/KPM72313

 

 

V.P.

 

Edited January 30, 2023 by Homebee

[Ptmvarsityfan]

Great news! I've recently built a few KP WWI aircraft and found them to be pretty good so looking forward to the DH9A!

[John Thompson]

Interesting, considering the recent announcement from Clear Prop!:

 

I expect, given the current horrible circumstances in Ukraine, the CP kit will be grossly delayed or sadly might never even materialize, leaving a small, DH.9A-shaped void in the modelbuilding continuum for KP to fill. Speaking of voids, now would also be a good time for KP to get busy on a series of accurate, well-detailed Yak-9/VK-105's, too, BTW. I haven't said that in a while, so I thought I'd just toss it out there again.

 

John

[KRK4m]

I would not like in any way to negate the importance of the DH.9A for aviation history - not only British, but truly world-wide. But why is everyone insisting on this - after all, an enlarged (in every respect) variant of the good DH.4, whose monstrous (1967 tool) Airfix model is still the only option in gentleman's scale.

And yet the DH.4 is not only the mainline British single-engine bomber of the Great War, but also the aircraft that built the numerical power of US aviation for many years...

Cheers

Michael

[AWFK10]

1 hour ago, KRK4m said:

I would not like in any way to negate the importance of the DH.9A for aviation history - not only British, but truly world-wide. But why is everyone insisting on this - after all, an enlarged (in every respect) variant of the good DH.4, whose monstrous (1967 tool) Airfix model is still the only option in gentleman's scale.

And yet the DH.4 is not only the mainline British single-engine bomber of the Great War, but also the aircraft that built the numerical power of US aviation for many years...

Cheers

Michael

 

There is another option if you can lay your hands on it, the Pegasus kit. I've not built it myself but I can vouch for the quality of their Bristol Fighter and Martinsyde Elephant.

[derekS]

 The Pegasus DH4 is available from Freightdog.

 

 Also,apart from a long gone Blue Rider conversion,the DH9 has never been

kitted in 1/72 scale.

 

derek S

[matford]

3 hours ago, derekS said:

Also,apart from a long gone Blue Rider conversion,the DH9 has never been kitted in 1/72 scale.

Apart from Classic Plane and Ardpol for the DH.9

and Merlin Models, Classic Plane, Maquette and Czech Master Resin for the DH.9a

 

[KRK4m]

Gentlemen - let's not mix the anorectic DH.9, which is actually just a low-powered version of the original DH.4, with a much larger and 30 per cent heavier DH.9A (and its Soviet R-1 mutation). There is some lack of my patriotism here 😉, because of all these machines, only the Puma-engined DH.9 was used (even in combat) in Polish aviation.

But with "just" 4,000 built, the pointed-nose DH.9 made a much less record in aviation history than both of its pug-nosed brothers - the older DH.4 (6,500 including the US DH-4) and the later DH.9A (4,700 including the R-1, but not including 700+ of the heavily redesigned Westland Walrus, Wapiti and Wallace).

Cheers

Michael

[modelldoc]

Decades before the Russian Wholesaler "Maquette" had a Polikarpov R-1 in the program:

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/21603181@N08/16408754803/in/photolist-v3WMPM-uL1Hbn-soDPcf-22XUPzK-v3WMTp-qZZa8z-rUukyN

 

modelldoc

Edited March 12, 2022 by modelldoc

[Cammer625]

I’ll wait for the Clear Prop Models one.  Hopefully the world will sort itself out soon and they can get back to their lives. I can wait as long as need be.

[Meatbox8]

Most excellent and welcome news.  An absolute 'must' for me, particularly the 'silver wings' edition.  KP really are cranking out some great subjects these days.

[Homebee]

- ref. KPM72310 - de Havilland DH.9A - At War

Source: https://www.kovozavody.cz/produkt/airco-dh-9a-at-war/

 

 

 

- ref. KPM72311 - de Havilland DH.9A - RAF

Source: https://www.kovozavody.cz/produkt/airco-dh-9a-raf/

 

 

 

- ref. KPM72312 - de Havilland DH.9A - Silver Wings

Source: https://www.kovozavody.cz/produkt/airco-dh-9a-silver-wings/

 

 

 

- ref. KPM72313 - Polikarpov R-1

Source: https://www.kovozavody.cz/produkt/polikarpov-r-1/

 

 

V.P.

[Homebee]

Released

- ref. KPM72310 - de Havilland DH.9A - At War - https://www.aviationmegastore.com/de-havilland-dh-9a-at-war-kovozvody-prostejov-kpm72310-aircraft-scale-modelling/product/?action=prodinfo&art=186279

- ref. KPM72311 - de Havilland DH.9A - RAF - https://www.aviationmegastore.com/de-havilland-dh-9a-raf-kovozvody-prostejov-kpm72311-aircraft-scale-modelling/product/?action=prodinfo&art=186280

- ref. KPM72312 - de Havilland DH.9A - Silver Wings - https://www.aviationmegastore.com/de-havilland-dh-9a--silver-wings-kovozvody-prostejov-kpm72312-aircraft-scale-modelling/product/?action=prodinfo&art=186281

- ref. KPM72313 - Polikarpov R-1 -https://www.aviationmegastore.com/polikarpov-r-1-kovozvody-prostejov-kpm72313-aircraft-scale-modelling/product/?action=prodinfo&art=186282

 

   

 

V.P.

[Patrik]

For a long time, I have wished to post this diagram. Now, I have finally the right opportunity, however, if our esteemed Administrators think that I crossed the red line, just tell me please and I am going to delete it.

 

 

So where do we stand with the new tool KP Ninak? For purely academic reasons, I purchased the “Silver wings” boxing. The rumoured CMR link is – well – obvious. Including the repeated mistake of using identical master as the resin ancestor. The masters for resin kits are made slightly bigger in order to account for the material shrinkage. Which does not happen with plastic and therefore all KP parts are slightly bigger than they should be. The differences are in the range of 1-2 mm, and therefore, I suppose many people will choose ignoring it happily. Otherwise very pleasant surprise. I believe the photos below speak clearly. The kit is mildly modified copy of the CMR resin, especially avoiding usage of the various PE parts contained in the resin original.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The joy is marred by two issues. The first one is the decals. They are not too bad, but they contain trademark KP feature, which is the haphazard usage of symbols, text fonts and text sizes with zero relation to reality.

 

 

 

The second one is more critical. CMR never issued post-war DH.9A kit (though they had planned so, as far as I remember). It means the KP fuselage represents the early one, with lower dorsal part of the rear fuselage. Correct for wartime Ninaks and for the Soviet R-1 copy, but incorrect for many (if not for fall) post-war airplanes, including at least two (J.8184 and E.8627) out of the three machines from the KP Silver wings boxing. I am not sure about J.7119, just because I have not been able to find a photo of J.7119 yet. If someone can fill in the info, I will appreciate it. Additionally, the transparent parts of the “late” fuselage are substituted by decals, but this is a minor issue compared to the principal problem described above.

Incidentally, the photo below also shows the extent of the stretch of the plastic parts, fuselage in this case.

 

 

For myself, I am really looking forward to see how the incoming ClearProp kit compares with the presented KP. However, attention all silver wing lovers, I am afraid we all have to wait for ClearProp to get proper interwar Ninak!

Edited August 12, 2022 by Patrik

[Torbjorn]

Many thanks for that. My impression from your photos is that the details are much better than their other recent Great War subjects: all parts, fortunately including the wings this time, look much less clumsy. Hope the wartime decals will be better. 

 

A bummer they keep repeating the no-shrinkage error, but as you said, I could probably live with a 1/71 kit.

[occa]

KP should start to investigate a bit more, they rely too much on copying

There^^, I tried to put it mildly

[Smudge]

@Patrik I've been looking forward to this one. Sorry to hear it has these issues. It is frustrating when the decals don't look right.

 

What was different about the post-war version fuselage?

 

I think I will still get one. Much better than the Merlin version, which I never did build 😬

 

http://scalemates.com/kits/merlin-models-18-havilland-dh-9a--173807

[TheKinksFan]

3 hours ago, Smudge said:

@Patrik I've been looking forward to this one. Sorry to hear it has these issues. It is frustrating when the decals don't look right.

 

What was different about the post-war version fuselage?

 

I think I will still get one. Much better than the Merlin version, which I never did build 😬

 

http://scalemates.com/kits/merlin-models-18-havilland-dh-9a--173807

Are you aware that Clear Prop is releasing a 1/72 DH.9A in the near future? No price yet, but it is listed in future releases on hannant's.

[Patrik]

7 hours ago, Smudge said:

What was different about the post-war version fuselage?

The height and angle of the fuselage spine behind the pilot cockpit was different and therefore the observer cockpit was placed higher in the postwar version, see below. Late up, early down. The difference is 2 mm in 1/72, so some may choose ignoring it, but to me, the shape difference seems to be too obvious to be neglected. I have not been able to find any rule or clear threshold between early and late, photographic reference must be checked for each particular airplane. Above, I just tried pointing out that at least two out of the three airplanes of the KP Silver wings boxing have the late fuselage. Otherwise the kit seems to be decent enough and on the first sight easy to build representation of Ninak. Early Ninak.

 

 

Clear Prop announced "early" version now. Let us hope "late" is going to follow "later".

Edited August 19, 2022 by Patrik

[Smudge]

1 hour ago, TheKinksFan said:

Are you aware that Clear Prop is releasing a 1/72 DH.9A in the near future? No price yet, but it is listed in future releases on hannant's.

 

Hi. Yes thank you. I was aware of that. To be honest I am not sure which one to go for. The new KP kits can be a bit hit and miss, Clear Prop! are fairly new to me, but seem to put out some very nice kits. KP always do a good choice of boxing's and different finishes. It's difficult to choose  

 

The awful current situation in Ukraine makes me think I should support Clear Prop! (but I really want the 'silver wings' post war version). I've got the Seasprite and Mohawk (they are lovely kits) and I will certainly be getting the Tracer when it's released (fingers crossed for that one).

 

Cheers.

[Smudge]

56 minutes ago, Patrik said:

The height and angle of the fuselage spine behind the pilot cockpit was different and therefore the observer cockpit was placed higher in the postwar version, see below. Late up, early down. The difference is 2 mm in 1/72, so some may choose ignoring it, but to me, the shape difference seems to be too obvious to be neglected.

 

Ah, yes. I see that now. I had never noticed before. Only 2mm? but it is very obvious once you know. Hmmm, I think I would have to try and fix that.

 

Cheers.

[TheKinksFan]

2 hours ago, Smudge said:

 

Hi. Yes thank you. I was aware of that. To be honest I am not sure which one to go for. The new KP kits can be a bit hit and miss, Clear Prop! are fairly new to me, but seem to put out some very nice kits. KP always do a good choice of boxing's and different finishes. It's difficult to choose  

 

The awful current situation in Ukraine makes me think I should support Clear Prop! (but I really want the 'silver wings' post war version). I've got the Seasprite and Mohawk (they are lovely kits) and I will certainly be getting the Tracer when it's released (fingers crossed for that one).

 

Cheers.

You could write to their customer service (Clear Prop) and ask if they have plans for a post war version. I asked about the I-16 type 10, got an answer that it's planned for 2023. I know what you mean, KP/AZ tempt us with dozens of different versions and schemes. Afterwards you  curse yourself for buying a kit that has attractive schemes but is otherwise awful (or half-afwul).

Edited August 19, 2022 by TheKinksFan

[Cammer625]

So after checking the ADF-Serials site, I’m looking at the RAAF Ninaks as early ones? Is this right?

[stevehnz]

Thanks @Patrik for sleuthing this for us, I confess to having not knowing why some 9As seemed higher in the observers area than others & always put it down to camera angle, now I know it is not. I'd like to do a between wars Indian service machine & mostly these seem to have the raised rear deck, I think.  I have a couple of the DH-9A/R-1 kits from Russia, I wonder how far out they are to one of these size wise?

Steve.

[Ptmvarsityfan]

As Patrick states, check your references for post-war aircraft. Referring to the Windsock Data files on the Ninak, by no means all of the silver aircraft were what the author refers to as "hump-backed" but aircraft used in the Middle East usually had an additional radiator under the nose and often an external fuel tank under the starboard side of the top wing. Also of course spare wheels and other bits and bobs! 

Cheers, Paul