MACH 2 1:72 AMIOT 351-354

 

Reviewer: Johan De Wolf (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted:  4 December 2005

Kit Details:

Aircraft History:

Developed from the fast long range Amiot 341 “mailplane” design, the 350 series were a radical departure from previous designs. Instead of a box with wings approach, these new Amiots were the summon of aerodinamics. The Amiot 350 was an extremely clean aircraft. With shoulder mounted wings and powered by two closely cowled radials the aircraft looked fast. Compaired to twin engine bomber designs from other countries the 350 was a reasonably large aircraft. Several versions were projected all with different engines and equipment fit. The promising performance figures led to several production contracts. 

The first production 351 finally flew in the summer of 1939, several months later than planned. The issue of single or twin fin layout was still being debated, and the design of the twin fin had not been finalised yet, with more modifications being needed. With production rates falling ever more behind shedual, Amiot tried to find factories in the USA to produce the aircraft. However this idea faded quickly due to lack of interest from the Americans. In the mean time the prototypes showed problems with engine cooling and a weak undercarriage. Engine availability also proved to be a problem. The cooling problem was solved by a redesigned cowl, but problems with the weak undercarriage and armament remained. Even though the onset of war placed high priority on producing more aircraft, production of the 350 series remained painstakingly slow. This is partly to blame on Amiot, but ever changing requirements and production orders coupled with indecision from the airforce surely didn’t help to speed up things.

Although being grossly overweight and underpowered, service personnel was more than happy to accept the 351-354. After lumbering on with Amiot 143’s for years, the prospect of flying a really modern aircraft was eagerly anticipated. Even though the type wasn’t declared fit for war yet, the first operational sorties were soon flown with 354’s. The debut mission was a reconnaissance flight to Maastricht in the Netherlands on the night of 16th may 1941. Other missions soon followed, but losses started to mount too. Under the relentless pressure from the advancing Germans, most serviceable machines were withdrawn to north Africa. From there they continued to fly bombing missions to targets in Sicily and northern Italy until the armistice at the end of June. After the armistice the remaining 30 or so aircraft were flown back to France and were stored at Istres. A few of these machines were later used by Air France for high speed courier services to French territories overseas. A few Amiots also ended up serving with 1/KG 200 after conversion to 356 standard with Merlin engines.

Although the Amiot 350 series could well have been a real winner, mismanagement and the onset of war denied this design the time needed to fully develop and be produced in any useful numbers. In the end only some 65 machines were produced (all versions including prototypes).

The Kit:

As usual with kits by Mach2 this one comes in a box with a sturdy bottom but flimsy top. Inside there is one large sprue with light grey parts and a smaller sprue with clear parts. Parts are included for the twin fin Amiot 351, as well as the single fin 354. Anyone that has ever seen a Mach2 kit will know that these kits are not for the novice and as far as short run technology goes nowhere near the likes of MPM. Having said that, I still was pleasantly surprised by this kit. There are only a few, easy to deal with, sink marks. Sprue gates are not overly large and flash is minimal. The plastic is rather soft so care has to be taken when removing the parts from the sprue, but clean up is a doddle. Panel lines are engraved but inconsistent. The transparent parts are rather thick but very clear. 

Dry fitting everything is a must with these kits, however I found this one goes together without much of hassle. The instructions consist of one exploded diagram and a drawing of the under carriage. This leaves you with quite a bit of guess work. Apart from the interior colour, no further paint instructions are given. Fortunately the box top gives you a colour camouflage drawing. The decals in my kit were damaged, but even if they weren't damaged they are not really usable. Registration was way off and the colours are too light. If you would like to use them, make sure to give them a coat of Micro Superfilm first as they are very, very thin.

Accuracy:

Length and span are both 3mm short. I decided not to bother with that, as the kit captures the smooth lines of the original very well. The prop diameter is about 2mm too small. Note that in the kit both props rotate counter clockwise. Seen from the front the left prop should be turning clockwise though. The landing gear is also a bit short. As the bulky long barrel 20mm gun was rather unsuitable for the cramped space in these Amiots it was in most cases replaced by a 7.5mm machine gun. Only the 20mm gun is supplied with the kit though.


© Johan De Wolf 2005

Construction:

I removed all the parts carefully from the sprues and cleaned them up. Dry fitting the major parts showed, much to my surprise, no real problems. I decided to build the twin-fin Amiot 351.  Before starting construction I rescribed all panel lines to a more consistent finish. The wheel wells needed little adjustment and fitted well, then I joined the wing halves. While that was left to dry I turned my attention to the cockpit. You get a full length floor with molded on side consoles, an instrument panel, 3 seats with separate backrest, a D/F loop, the 20 mm canon, a 2 piece control column and a 2 piece bombsight. This last item was short shot an I had to replace it with a scratchbuild part. The D/F loop is too large and it was replaced with a new one made from copperwire. The seats and control column needed some refinement as they were rather crude. It was a bit of a chore as the 350 series had an airliner style wheel. As the whole interior has to be painted blue nuit (very dark grey blue), and nothing much can be seen under the greenhouse canopy,  I only added seatbelts an rudder paddles. The seat frame was painted natural aluminium, and the cushion dark green. The surface detail on the side consoles and instrument panel was painted black with white highlights for the instruments. 

The fuselage halves were then joined. As very few of the Amiots were fitted with the 20 mm gun, I replaced this with a suitable machine gun. While the canopy fitted without a hitch, the nose cone needed some sanding and careful filling to fit on the fuselage. With the fuselage now fully closed I added the stabilisers and fins. Next came the wings. They didn’t seem to want to fit in the right place properly. That was until I decided to chop of the locating tabs, then suddenly all was well. Even though nothing much can be seen from the engines inside the close fitting cowls, I decided to replace the overly simple kit parts with something from the spares box anyway. I had to do quite a bit of trimming on the bacck of the carb intake fairing to get the cowlings to sit right on the wing. The rotation direction of the left prop was rectified, and then both props were fitted. 

The landing gear is rather crude too. It could be replaced with a lengthened Mosquito gear as this looks very similar. But as I didn’t have anything like it in my spares box, I had to make do with the kit parts. The gear doors look pretty good and I only thined them down a but before installing them. Final items added were the pitot under the nose and the fuel dump pipe/radio antenna fairing? Under the rear fuselage.


© Johan De Wolf 2005

Painting & Decals:

I decided to stick with the standard green/grey/brown over light bluegrey camouflage, as shown on the box lid. Note that the demarcation line between the upper and lower colours on the wing leading edge is wavy. There were some more interesting schemes used on the 350 series but there is very little documentation about them. 

As mentioned earlier, the kit decals are pretty useless. I found suitable roundels and the white fuselage stripe on Model Art sheet 72-022. The white 3 came from the spares album. I couldn’t find the GB II/21 emblem anywhere (owl siting in the moon) so I had to use the kit decals for this. I had to stick to the kit decals for the type and serial registrations on the rudder too. I coated them with two layers of Micro decal film, but even then they were difficult to handle. 

After the decals had dried thoroughly I gave the model a wash with a black/brown mixture of waterpaints to bring out the panel lines. I have no idea where the 351 had their engine exhausts as pictures don’t show the exhaust nor tell tale staining. To tone down the panel lines again, I retraced them with a silver artists panel. To seal everything in, the model was given a coat of semi gloss varnish.


© Johan De Wolf 2005

Colours used:

Interior:                                 Bleu nuit                    Tamiya XF-17

Camouflage:                          Terre fonce.               Tamiya XF-52

                                                Vert moyen               Modelmaster MM2106

                                                Grisbleu fonce           Modelmaster MM2105

                                                Grisbleu clair             Modelmaster MM2109

Propellor                                Vert fonce                  Tamiya XF-11

Landing gear                         metal                          Tamiya XF-16

Wheelbay                               Vert de pomme         Tamiya XF-5

Conclusion:

I was pleasantly surprised by this Mach kit. It went together without any major problems. It also captures the sleek lines of this Amiot very well. During photographing the finished kit I noticed that one wing has a slightly larger chord at the root than the other. So it’s a real Mach kit after all. Although clearly a short run kit that requires a bit more effort from the modeller, I can still recommend it to anyone who has tackled a few old Airfix and/or Revell kits before.

References:

 


© Johan De Wolf 2005

 

SMAKR Home  |  What's New  |  Submissions  | Information Requests |  News  |  Links  |  Reference Corner  |  Site Info 
1/72 Reviews  |  1/48 Reviews  |  INBOX Reviews