’The English Patient’ (32053) Movie Aircraft Tiger Moth & Stearman 1:32

[Mike]

’The English Patient’ (32053)

Movie Aircraft Tiger Moth & Stearman

1:32 ICM via H G Hannants Ltd

 

 

The movie ‘The English Patient’ was the screen adaptation of a novel by Michael Ondaatje and was directed by Anthony Minghella with a quality cast, many of whom went on to become stars in their own right.  It starred Ralph Fiennes as a hideously burned pilot near the end of WWII with Juliette Binoche playing a nurse caring for him until he succumbed to his injuries, after which she would catch up with her unit.  Of course, nothing is straightforward, and various other characters appear, muddying the waters and adding intrigue to the piece.  I’ve never watched it, so if I’m off beam anywhere you’ll just have to chalk it up to me disliking romance movies, even though they’re set in WWII.  Two aircraft make an appearance in the movie, namely the Tiger Moth and the Stearman, which are the subject of this reboxing of two of ICM’s recent large-scale kits.  Whether the Stearman would have been in British service at the time is a moot point, as it was used in the film and that’s all that matters.

 

 

The Tiger Moth

The de Havilland Tiger Moth was one of the most important and most widely produced trainer aircraft to have seen service with the RAF. It was designed by Geoffrey de Havilland himself in the 1930s and was based on the Gypsy Moth, suitably redesigned to meet Air Ministry Specification 13/31. In comparison to its predecessor, the Tiger Moth's wings were swept and repositioned, and the cockpits were redesigned to make escape easier. The airframe was also strengthened and the engine exhaust system was redesigned.

 

The Tiger Moth entered service with the RAF in 1932 and remained in service until well after the war. Over 8,000 examples were completed and the type also served with the Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal New Zealand Air Force as well as a great many other military and civilian operators. In service it proved itself to be ideally suited to its role; easy enough to fly, but challenging enough to weed out the weaker students.  It was also cheap and easy to maintain. Further variants would be the DH.82C fitted with an enclosed hood for cold weather operations in Canada; and the Queen Bee which was an unmanned radio-controlled target drone that resulted in a thinning of the herd of surviving airframes.  Always popular with civilian users, many Tiger Moths found their way into private ownership after the War, with many maintained in flying condition to this day.

 

This is a reboxing of the recent tool from ICM that was first released in 2020, so it’s a thoroughly modern model.  There are four sprues in grey styrene plus one of clear parts, and a shared decal sheet for both aircraft.  The detail is excellent as we’ve come to expect from ICM, and providing you aren’t phobic about rigging, should make a straight-forward build. 

 

 

 

 

Construction begins with drilling holes in the two fuselage halves, using holes that are pre-thinned from the inside to ease the way.  The fuselage halves are then detailed with throttle quadrants, instrument panels with dial decals, and the bulkheads between the two seating areas.  At this time there are a couple more 0.3mm holes drilled in the top cowling in front of the cockpit to insert more rigging wires, which you’ll need to supply yourself, along with more threaded through the holes in the fuselage sides that you drilled earlier.  Helpfully, the instructions tell you the length of wire that you should plan for, although I’d be tempted to use the numbers as a minimum value, just in case.  You can always cut some off, but adding some on is much more of a skill.  With that the fuselage is closed up, a firewall is inserted into the front, and an elevator inserted onto a rectangular peg in the rear of the fuselage, with the wider strakes that are fitted to the decal options, followed by the standard rudder fin, which has the tail skid moulded into the bottom.  There is a good representation of the four-cylinder Gypsy Major engine that outputs less power than my perfectly normal family car, which makes one stop and think for a second.  The block is in two halves that trap the conical drive-shaft inside, exhaust manifold, mounts and other ancillaries, with a baffle on one side, after which it can be glued into the firewall at the front of the fuselage, and have the cowling parts installed along with the open or closed access doors for the crew, small intake on the starboard cowling, and bumper-strips on the forward edge of each cockpit aperture.  The lucky crew have a three-faceted windscreen placed in recesses in front of them to keep the bugs out of their teeth, then we move onto the wings.

 

The wings are full-width parts, and the lower wing is made first, drilling rigging holes in the top surface, and leaving off the underside of this and the topside of the upper wing until after the rigging is complete.  Whilst that might work for some, I’d be a little wary of gluing big parts such as the wings together after painting, although that’s just my opinion.  You may have noticed there were no more cockpit details made up earlier, which is because the rest of the cockpit is built on the lower wing centre, as that’s where you will find the cockpit floor.  A narrow control assembly is made first with rudder bars and control columns in duplicate, fitting into the cockpit floor on eight small rectangular slots, then joined by the aft seat, and the weird front seat that is moulded as a deep depression into the bulkhead between the two.  The lower wing (upper only) is then mated with the fuselage, completing the cockpit at the same time.  The interplane struts are individual parts in the outer wings, with two Z-shaped cabane struts fixed high on the fuselage sides just in front of the cockpit.  More rigging holes are drilled into the lower half of the upper wing before joining it to the struts and adding the ribbed fuel tank to the centre of the upper wing.  The next two diagrams show the location of the rigging using red lines, dotting them where they pass out of sight, and numbering them in a dot-to-dot fashion.  After completion of rigging, the upper-upper and lower-lower wing halves are glued in place, hiding any messy rigging knots that you might have left.  It does make for a clean job of the rigging, but I’m no expert at rigging.  The upper wing has a pair of slats added to the leading edge, and ailerons to the lower trailing edge, then it’s time to make the landing gear.

 

The wheels of the Tiger Moth are moulded in two halves, and slide over the axle-ends of a single complex W-shaped (ish) strut, which once it is in place is buttressed by four support struts that prevent the gear collapsing on landing.  A little L-shaped tube glues to the underside of the fuselage while it’s upside down, and actuators are added under the ailerons, plus a couple of support struts are fitted between the elevators and fuselage, which also have triangular actuators added to small slots that are mirrored on the rudder, with more rigging added there later on.  The prop is a single part that snugs into the tapered drive-shaft, and after completion of the final rigging to the tail, a further diagram has a set of shapes printed that you can use to pattern your own masks for the two canopies if you don’t want to spend extra money on a masking set.  I like these, but haven’t used them yet, and would suggest reducing the tape’s stickiness by applying it to a clean surface first, to avoid tearing or marring the paper when you remove it.

 

 

The Stearman

The Stearman Aircraft Corporation was founded in 1927 by Lloyd Stearman. then in 1929 it was sold to The United Transport & Aircraft Corporation. This would then split in 1934 due to US Antitrust legislation with Boing which had been a part of it becoming its own business again; Stearman then became a subsidiary of Boeing. At about this time they designed what would become their most famous aircraft the Model 75 Kaydet. The new aircraft was a conventional tail wheeled biplane with an exposed radial engine. The aircraft was selected as the basic primary trainer for the USAAF and the USN, as well as for the Royal Canadian Air Force. In USAAF Service it would be designated the PT-13 with a Lycoming R-680 engine, The PT-17 with a Continental R-670-5 engine, and a PT-18 with a Jacobs R-755 engine. The USN had the NS, and NS2 with a variety of engines.  Canadian PT-27 aircraft were USAAF PT-17s supplied under Lease Lend. In total over 10,000 airframes were built, many were sold off post war, and a lot of these still survive today. 

 

This is a reboxing of the recent Stearman PT-17 Kaydet kit, and consists of four sprues in grey styrene and another small sprue of clear parts, plus the afore mentioned shared decal sheet, and a shared instruction booklet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Construction begins with the cockpit, which is mostly empty space with a tubular framework holding all the instruments and controls.  The sidewall frames are detailed, as is the floor with a pair of linked control columns, then they are joined together and held perpendicular to each other by a triangular cross-brace.  The two seats are each a single part with a ladder frame added at the rear, and they slip in between the sides, strengthening the assembly further, then the fuselage is prepared for closure and the insertion of the cockpit assembly.  Just a fire extinguisher is (ironically) added to the port sidewall, which has ribbed detail moulded-in, then the two halves are closed up around the tail-wheel, which has a separate wheel part slipped over the axle.  An insert with riveted panelling is placed under the fuselage between the wheel struts, which are incidentally moulded into the two fuselage halves, then the cockpit assembly can be pushed in from the front and secured on pins, allowing the ribbing to be seen through the framework.  The upper fuselage deck is separate and has the two instrument panels and back rests glued to the underside before it is fixed in place over the cockpit, closing up the fuselage.  Another shorter insert fits under the front of the fuselage with another added to the port side, with the firewall closing up the front.  The landing gear strut ends are simple affairs with separate scissor-links that slot into the legs after adding the two-part wheels, and are covered over by inner panels that are added to the moulded-in legs.  Your model can now stand on its own three wheels for the first time.

 

The flying surfaces are started by joining the two halves of the elevator fins together, and fixing the flying surfaces to the rear, with the ability to pose them deflected if you wish.  They fit into slots in the sides of the tail fin, which then receive a single thickness rudder with separate actuator.  Both main wings are supplied as full span assemblies, with separate tops and ailerons on the lower wing only.  A pair of clear wingtip lights are inserted into the upper wings, then the four cabane struts and two Z-shaped interplane struts are glued in place and the wing is then lowered onto the model, taking care to keep everything correctly aligned.

 

The Continental R-670-5 7-cylinder radial engine of the Stearman is barely any more powerful than the Tiger Moth, and its six exhaust stacks are assembled on the firewall at the front of the fuselage, followed by the intake trunking and push-rods, then adding the carburettor underneath.  The cylinder bank is made up from two halves, adding a short prop shaft from inside the front half that is covered over by a circular part to prevent it from falling out of position.  The rear portion is glued into place, and a vertical housing is inserted between the bottom two cylinders, after which it can be fixed to the fuselage with a choice of two props, each with two blades.  The narrower prop is a ground adjustable steel McCauley unit, while the thicker one is wooden fixed-pitch Sensenich unit.

 

The last page of the instructions detail rigging of the model, spanning three steps that show the wires marked in red over a line-drawn diagram.  To the side is a drawing that shows the shape of masks that you can make yourself to help you keep the clear parts from getting marred by paint during the build.

 

 

Markings

There is one option per aircraft as you would expect, as follows:

 

• DH.82A Tiger Moth G-AFFC
• Stearman Model 75 G-AFEA

 

 

 

The decals are printed by ICM’s usual partners, and consist of dials, registration codes, and a few other small decals, with good register, sharpness and dense blacks.

 

 

Conclusion

Another good value boxed set from ICM that should appeal to more than just film buffs, but anyone interested in interwar biplane trainers too.

 

Highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of

[Danish Kenneth]

Very nice review, thank you!

 

Just a slight addition: The Stearman in the film did not have the standard R-670 engine included in the kit, but (what to me looks like) a larger and more powerful Pratt & Whitney R-1340 (could possibly also be an R-985, but it‘s definitely not an R-670). The propeller is also different from the kit rendering, namely a constant-speed unit with a massive spinner (possibly off a Harvard)

Edited February 14, 2023 by Danish Kenneth