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Reviewer: Richard Stracey  (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted:  18 October 2004

Kit Details:

AGA / CHEMATIC / GOMIX  #7213  1/72  --  BRISTOL BEAUFIGHTER XXI

Aircraft History:

The twin engine reliability of the Beaufighter was required and appreciated over the vast expanses of the Pacific and over the largely unexplored mountains of New Guinea. By March 1942 fifty four Fairey built Ic's had arrived from UK all to be serialed A19-. The first of three hundred and sixty four Australian made Mk.21,s flew in May 1944 all serialed A8-. They were based on the British Mk.10,s but had no provision for carrying a torpedo, had four 0.050” machine guns in the wings and could carry two 250lb bombs and eight rockets. The main distinguishing feature was the bulge on the nose that contained the Sperry autopilot. The Beaufighter equipped five RAAF squadrons, No.22, 30, 31, 92 and 93.

The Kit:

This Eastern European reincarnation of the elderly Frog kit #F291 in their Green series consists of sixty four parts in medium hard grey plastic and four clear parts. The decals are for one aircraft and the pictorial instructions are a copy of the Frog original. What writing that there is, is in Polish (?). The parts are contained in an unsealed plastic bag inside a well made box with attractive artwork.

Construction:

Oh dear! It proves a bit of a shock to open the box and view the contents! I do not exaggerate when I say that there is probably close to fifty percent kit and fifty percent flash and sprue! The best way to approach this kit is as one would a limited run kit. Things do look a lot brighter after everything has been de flashed, the mating surfaces sanded and the surfaces tidied up where damage and or rust on the dies have taken their toll. I don’t know why Frog ever included a torpedo with this kit as they were not carried by Mk.21’s. 

The basic fuselage, wings and tail are useable although the horizontal tail surfaces appear a bit oversize by some plans. The interior (Sector 1) can be junked and a Ron’s Resin cockpit interior #72.48 substituted. Generally I consider resin interiors a waste of time and money in this scale but in the Beaufighter’s case the canopy being large and Frog’s attempt at an interior, woeful, it comes in useful. I haven’t worked out which kit the replacement is designed for, obviously not this one as it needs a great deal of whittling , sanding and dry runs to fit. The second area where Ron comes to the rescue is with the cowlings. The kit ones bear no relationship to the real thing and Ron’s Resin #03772 really saves the day for this unfortunate kit. (Ron does the same for the Matchbox kit with #03872 and I presume that one or the other can also be used with the Airfix kit too.) 

I white glued the main wheels on in the expectation of one day replacing them with better detailed Aeroclub V210 “Typhoon and Beaufighter Wheels”. They also supply a “Solid Nose”, V122 that, I presume, restores the nose to a British one. I cut away the solid leading edge on the left wing for the landing light. After boxing it in I added a couple of 7” HO jewels and covered them with clear plastic. The rockets, launchers and bombs were unusable but I found a couple of (Matchbox?) launch rails in my spares box as well as a couple of air intakes to replace the kit ones (13) that didn’t even seem to fit the kit cowlings. One point to watch is, for no reason that I can see, Beaufighters seemed to vary between long and short air intakes. I cut the “hedgehogs” from the exhausts and glued them in place behind the cowling. 

Chaz Bowyer’s “Beaufighter at War” from Ian Allan Ltd. p.151 shows a good photograph of this area of the aircraft that I was depicting. The clear sprue is remarkably clear and flash free (is it a new die?) but  I used that amazing Falcon Clear Vax set from their RAF Fighter Set #2 as they also supply two types of observers canopies and as the vac form df loop cover was much thinner than the plastic kit one there was room to install a small wire loop under it. As the kit observer’s gun is unusable an Aeroclub one would come in handy.

Colour Schemes/Decals:

The decals for A8-124 SK*T were very glossy and looked a bit suspect. As I had Propagteam’s #72101 decal set that I had always intended to use, I didn’t use the kit ones. Other than a couple of “half moons” of white on the roundels the decals were, as usual, perfect. The trick is to get them safely in to place and the only way to do that is to slide them directly into place on the surface using plenty of lubricating water and only resorting to decal setting solution when all else fails. 

Not being an expert in anything in general and Australian camouflage in particular, I painted everything in Testors 1764 (FS34092) Euro I Dark Green although Propagteam recommend Agama A16M for which there is no Humbrol equivalent although I have heard that Humbrol 149 (RLM73) or 163 (HX1) are close.

Conclusions:

Naturally, there is quite a lot of reference material available including Warpaint #1, Profile #137, Air Enthusiast March ’74, Aeroplane (Monthly) August ’03, Scale Aircraft Modelling “Inside Story” July ’89 and “Aircraft in Detail” August ’89 and Scale Models (International) May and July ’74 and Nov ’79 that contains a review and cutaway. Aeroclub also supply replacement canopies #CO59 and Hercules Engines and Cowlings #EO85 that, I presume, are suitable. Well, thanks to Ron, Falcon, Aeroclub and Propagteam a disaster of a kit can be transformed into a reasonable model. Frog also made a Beaufighter in their Penguin series # 119P and in their Green series, a Mk.I / VI / X  #F191.

© Richard Stracey 2004

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