ZLINEK 1/72 AVIA S-99
'In The Box Review'

 

Reviewer: Myself  (smakr@bigpond.com)
A fully built review of this kit exists on SMAKR, see links below

Kit:  Zlinek #A 01 1/72 Avia S-99

Parts: 1 Sprue in plastic bag of about 40 injection molded parts in dark grey colour, very slight bits of flash evident
1 sprue of about 7 clear parts incorporating two piece canopy, instrument panel and wingtip navigation lights.

Instructions: Just one double-sided A4 sheet with assembly instructions on one side and painting schemes for two aircraft on the other - call outs in RLM shades.

Versions:  Two - A Czech version in overall metal finish and quoted darker metal shade on undersides, nose area right back to where the wings join the aircraft in red with same colour on wing leading edges.  Details of how the scheme (and why) are provided in the instructions. The other version is a Hungarian model in typical German mottled black green and splintered camouflage of dark green and grey violet over light grey.

Decals:  Produced by Extratech and look to be very good.  Nothing in the way of stencilling, just serial numbers and roundels.

Accuracy:  Measures up very well to scale, spot on for length but to full scale would be underscaled by about a foot in the span.  Some other parts look a bit overscale.

Detail:  Detail is quite acceptable with panel lines engraved and other detail etched, looks very promising.  The canopy is a shocker though, see impressions.  A bit overdone on the rivets and a touch overscale.  Aerial masts in particular are nasty.

Options:  One can have an open canopy - if you get a chance to successfully fit it to the kit, that is.  Moveable propeller but nothing else.

Impressions:  On first impressions this looks like a decent nice little kit, but the first thing that blares out is the clear canopy parts.  These are full of flash and are extremely thick, one would scale the frames at three or four feet in real life - nuh, I don't think so!  When I build this kit the canopy section has to go, I understand there are some vacform options in this scale, or I could raid a Revell Bf109G-10 box!  Having got that out the way, I checked some fitting of the major components and found that this revealed a bit of a problematic construction process, I think the fit won't be particularly good.  The undercarriage looks poor and lacks detail.  Better notch this one down for the 'experienced' and perhaps look at another kit option such as the Revell brand quoted above for a conversion project.  But I am looking forward to giving it a go and reproducing the colourful Czech aircraft.

Other Comments:  The Avia S-99 is basically the Czech version/redesignation of the Messerschmitt Bf109G-10/R2 version.  Slight modifications were made, but I can't see why you wouldn't be able to convert an existing Bf-109G-10 kit, such as that which is offered by Revell under their new tooling policy, to an Avia S-99 type.

 

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