RS MODELS 1:72 AVIA B.135
'INBOX Review'

 

Reviewer: Kevan Vogler  (rec.models.scale)   
NOTE:  All images are taken from RS Models website

History:

In relation to geographic size, the former Czechoslovakia and the modern Czech Republic have had a very noteworthy and prolific aviation industry since the interwar period. Names like Aero, Avia, Praga, Skoda and Zlin being significant contributors to the nation’s aviation heritage.

The Avia B.135 fighter, according to much of what is published about it, falls into the category of great “could have beens”.

It was designed as a replacement to the aging Avia B.534 biplane fighter and was first flown in 1938. The B.135 was an exceptionally clean design, was found to be very fast with a top speed of about 535 kph and very responsive on the controls. Based on those performance factors, it was considered equal to the ME-109E and the Spitfire Mk.1.

Ultimately, only 12 of the type were built, all for the Royal Bulgarian air force in 1941. Production was halted with the German invasion of Czechoslovakia and the Avia factory was diverted to constructing German designed aircraft for the Luftwaffe.

Due to the B.135’s light armament (one 20mm cannon and two 7.92 mm guns) and temperamental engine, the Bulgarians kept it mostly for advanced training work. The B.135 did however get a taste of combat in March of 1944 when a fleet of American B-24 Liberators came close to Bulgarian airspace after bombing the Romanian oilfields at Ploiesti. A flight of four B.135s jumped the B-24s, downing one and scoring the type’s only victory of the war.

It is a great shame that an aircraft with the B.135’s potential was not permitted to come to more. 

The Kit:

Recently RS released two kits of the B.135:

You get two sprues of tan styrene with very crisply molded parts. The “A” sprue is common to both kits and the “B” sprue, which only holds the wings, is different between the kits as the wings for the Bulgarian aircraft had some design changes made to them.

You also get a nice injection molded canopy which looks very clear and, I would say, quite preferable to the vacuum formed canopies the RS kits are better known for having.

Also included is a small but very nice fret of Eduard photoetch, some of which is pre painted. I’m not much a fan of photoetch parts, but I am interested to see how these pre painted ones look once in place.

The decal sheet is quite nice and seems in perfect register. Its printed by Boa Agency which is a relatively new Czech decal company that seems to make decals mainly for 1/144 airliners. The hypothetical Czech air force option comes with a neat bit of nose art in the form of a mace and also three victory markings over Luftwaffe aircraft. I’m looking forward to seeing how Boa decals perform as I have heard good things about them.

The instructions are adequate, there is a parts map an a small list of which parts are for use with which kit. However, once the construction steps commence it is not always clear by the drawings what should be done.

The painting and marking guide is on the back of the box and paint callouts are quite generic and no specific paint range given. To complicate matters, the modeller is only given the camouflage pattern for the left side of the Czech air force aircraft and nothing for the right. 

As for the Czech camouflage colours and pattern, these were not hypothetical, as I understand Avia came up with it themselves and applied it to their fixed landing gear B.35 prototype which the B.135 was derived from. Judging from models I’ve seen of the B.35 in this camouflage; I would recommend the following colours from the Vallejo acrylic range as close matches to the generic call outs the kit provides:

As for the interior colour, the instructions only say “Grey”. Judging again from models I’ve seen of the B.35, I’m inclined to use Vallejo #886 Green-Gray for the base cockpit colour and will likely also use it for the main landing gear legs and wells as the instructions give no colour information at all for those areas.

General impressions and recommendations:

While the styrene is crisp and beautifully detailed, you won’t escape some parts clean up. The interior surfaces of the wing have some largish ejection pin stubs that must be cut down before the wing parts can come together. Dry fitting also showed the wing to fuselage junction may present a bit of problem in proper alignment.

Potential construction hang ups aside, it does look like a B.135 from pictures I could find.

Due to the instructions being rather wanting in some details and the presence of photoetch in the kit, I think this kit is best recommended to the upper intermediate to advanced modeller bracket and certainly recommended to anyone with a leaning toward more esoteric types of aircraft.

 

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