De Havilland Chipmunk

[Mike]

De Havilland Chipmunk

1:48 Heritage Aviation Models Ltd

The Chipmunk was the first fully Canadian aircraft from De Havilland of Canada, and was used by many airforces as a trainer in the post WWII years. The RAF trainers were manufactured by D.H. in the UK, and served with the RAF until 1996 when the last of them were withdrawn from service.

Canada used them until the early 70s, and a surprisingly large list of operators have used them over the years, including such varied powers as Egypt, Ghana and Lebanon. It is estimated that around 500 are still airworthy today, most in private hands.

The Chipmunk has been poorly served in 1:48, with only Aeroclub producing a vacform kit that is now quite hard to find, although I have one in the stash. The kit arrives in a sturdy card box with a glossy picture label announcing the contents. Inside is a partitioned bag of resin parts, a sheet of decals, two vacformed canopies and a parts list/reference photo/painting guide on folder A4 paper.

The Chippie is a diminutive aircraft, and the kit replicates its delicate shapes well. All the parts are protected within the heat-sectioned bag, so their condition was pristine when the bags were opened. The part count is relatively low, but don't let that put you off. The detail inside the cockpit is excellent, with lots of ribbing detail moulded into the insides of the fuselage, a separate floor with the rudder pedals built in, separate coamings for both pilots and separate control sticks, which are little more than lengths of pipe... just like the real thing!

The engine cowling is a separate part, and has locating pips for the intake scoops on the side panels. The exhaust stack is also included, but the modeller will need to drill this out hollow for extra realism. The prop is built up from two separate blades that glue into the central spinner, and here inserting some thin pins would improve strength as well as making the positioning of the blades easier.

The wings are single castings with moulded in flying surfaces and nav-lights. A casting mark runs along the leading edge of each wing, which will need sanding to clean up, but none of the delicate detail should be affected, as the leading edges are of metal construction, so smooth. They mate with a butt-joint, so a couple of locating pins should be the order of the day to give them extra strength and allow you to fine tune their dihedral before the epoxy cures.

There is a pip under each wing for the attachment of the fixed landing gear, which again would benefit from a wire peg to improve mating strength. Each leg has a landing light moulded into the top of the aerodynamic fairing, but I understand that at least some Chipmunks had only one attached to the port leg. Check your references, as one may well need sanding off before construction. The wheels have delicate attachment blocks, one of which came off in my hand, so cleanup won't be difficult. They have no flat-spots moulded in, but a swipe with a sanding stick should soon solve that. The tail wheel has a separate yolk, but you'll need to be careful with it as it is very delicate.

The few remaining parts cover aerial blades and the pitot probe that sits under the starboard wing, but as it is only seen in the head-on picture on the painting guide, position is unclear, so check your photo refs and side-on shots of the real thing to firm this up.

The kit provides you with two vacformed canopies which have been female moulded so have lovely crisp framing lines, and bulged side observation panels. Careful cutting with scissors and tidy-up with a fine sanding stick, followed by a dip in Klear/Future should result in a very nice clear canopy.

The decal sheet will allow the modeller to produce one of three airframes, as follows:

WG479 in red/white with grey wing surfaces.

WG486 overall black with white wing and fuselage bands

WK518 overall black with white wing and fuselage bands

The sheet is small but with excellent register and colour density, having been printed by Fantasy Printshop, and provides the modeller with plenty of emergency access stencils, plus refuelling point decals and wing walkways. The various roundels have separate central red dots for the modeller to position, and all of the national insignia on the black painted aircraft have white outlining.

Conclusion

I'm really impressed with this kit, especially with the fine details that are included, and the quality of the casting. The delicate reproduction of the fabric covered areas is excellent, and overall detail is just lovely. The resin landing gear could be a little weak perhaps, but care in assembly and subsequent handling should keep the parts intact, and beware of displaying or storing the completed model in hot conditions, which could cause sagging. I would have preferred white metal landing gear, but I'm one of those ham-fisted modellers that breaks parts like that.

The cockpit is a high point of the kit, and careful painting will bring out the fine detail provided. Some of Airscale's excellent instrument dials matched to the cockpit pictures provided with the kit should result in an excellent instrument panel. Construction should be pretty straight forward, and the use of epoxy glue for the major load bearing surfaces is recommended, plus some strengthening pins and super glue (CA) for the smaller parts.

Highly recommended.

Review sample courtesy of Ian at

As expected, I've now built the kit, and you can see the build review here, and the finished article here. modelling skills will be required, but I thoroughly enjoyed the process

[Paul A H]

That looks a bit nice Mike!

[maxdecal]

If you are looking for alternative markings for this lovely kit have a look at my Max decals sheet max4821 which contains markings for an Irish Air Corps Chipmunk in the original delivery scheme.

See http://www.maxdecals.com/webpages/max4821.html

A Chipmunk owned and operated by Declan Curtis is flying in these markings on the UK circuit this year.

Best regards,

Joe

See http://www.maxdecals.com

[Enzo the Magnificent]

Are you going to build one, Mike? It would look good sat next to your Tucano.

[Moofles]

now that does look very very nice, cant wait to see it all built up.

[Séan Pádraig]

LOL... the perils of procrastinating, I've had my 1/48 Aeroclub Chipmunk kit in my stash for a few years now waiting to build it using the MaxDecal sheet... as this was a hard to find kit I was in no rush, and now there will be a flood of the things now.

Still one reason I held off building the Chippy was I wanted to build the IAC version and the Hendon Museum trainer version... I guess now I can build both.

[Colin W]

Hi

I think you will find Aeroclub released a 1/48 limited run injection version as well as the vacform one mentioned. Both build up into excellent models.

Colin W

[Ian @ KitsforCash]

hi Mike

glad you like her, will look at metal u/c for her, strange cmk normally cast u/c in black harder resin..will ask

rgds ian

[Mike]

Inbox review now updated with links and a picture of the finished article