Airfix DH88 Comet

[crookedmouth]

Kit arrived at work this morning so a quick review using phone camera.

Box

Series 1 kit in usual blue grey plastic, 24 parts in total, a little bit of flash along mold lines.

General detail is okay but the cockpit is a disappointment indicating that it is the original tooling. The cockpit is closed up with two lumps as heads! Also the clear end to the nose is molded as part of the main fuselage rather than on the clear sprue.

The big disappointment for me is that the only option with the decals is "Black Magic", it would have been nice to have a couple of other options particularly "Grosvner House" which is the one I want to build so might have to look out for some after sales decals.

In all a very basi kit but at less than £5 that is to be expected. The lack of options on the decals is a big disappointment as is the cockpit but with some fettling a cockpit could be built or there was at one point a resin detail set. Hopefully Heritage Models will release the decal set for their DH88 on its own to allow other versions to be built.

For me I will propably try and scratch build a cockpit, who knows if it is okay and I can get a mold done there might be a demand for it.

It should not be a difficult kit out of the box so I might build one of the two I have and then play with the other when I have time.

Review sample provided by me, but a word of thanks to Wondermodels for the quick delivery once it was in stock.

Cheers,

Will you be doing a WIP on this? I know there's not much to see, but I have one in the post too.

[Madmonk]

Carlos, the decals are a gold colour, the phone camera is not that good.

Crooked, I will do a WIP but might be a couple of weeks though.

[Hypnobear]

Saw one of these at my local model shop today, and I think I might get one of those and do a What if British wartime scheme and add a big cannon in the nose because Im nuts

[Hypnobear]

RAF

Like this one

Funny as I didnt even notice this profile but still thought "yep, that would look good in RAF colours"

Edited November 24, 2010 by Nakajima15

[crookedmouth]

Saw one of these at my local model shop today, and I think I might get one of those and do a What if British wartime scheme and add a big cannon in the nose because Im nuts

I would try reducing the length of the canopy to account for a single pilot pit, in that case, perhaps, or even try to mod it a little to allow a bubble canopy.

Regardless, that would be wrong on many levels, like the Red Bull Sea Vixen

[Nick Millman]

The big disappointment for me is that the only option with the decals is "Black Magic", it would have been nice to have a couple of other options particularly "Grosvner House" which is the one I want to build so might have to look out for some after sales decals.

A little bird tells me that the plan is to gradually release the different versions as separate issues - same kits, different decals and box art, Hasegawa style. Weighing up the cost of the kit against the cost of decals these days and presuming the decal quality is good, perhaps not so naughty as it first sounds. There were (are?) separate decals available for each version from Whirlybird but you had to buy the kit in order to use them anyway.

I wish they had tidied up the props, one of the worst parts of the kit, or that hopefully somebody will produce replacements - white metal would be nice.

As a WiF an early "covert" PRU bird with uprated engines would be interesting but I suspect fuel + cameras = weight may have been a problem.

[stevehnz]

As a WiF an early "covert" PRU bird with uprated engines would be interesting but I suspect fuel + cameras = weight may have been a problem.

I suspect you're right Nick. The recent Aeroplane article about the ones that went to France gave the distinct impression you could have range or payload, but not both.

Steve.