Arba Products 1/48 Gloster E.28/39

ARBA PRODUCTS 1:48 GLOSTER E.28/39

Reviewer: John Mancini (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 10 November 2003

Aircraft History:

The Gloster E.28/39 was the first British aircraft to fly under jet propulsion in May 1941. The Pioneer was a demonstration aircraft built for the purpose of speed testing and for a short time held fastest speed record in 1941/42. It was also the first jet aircraft built and flown in UK. There were two prototypes made, the first initially in early form with an overall natural metal finish and missing the 'finlets' (vertical stabilisers on tailplanes although these were added later) and which was lost when ailerons jammed and the pilot had to bail out. The second prototype survived and is stored at the Science Museum, South Kensington (photo on the Net http://www.nmsi.ac.uk/on-line/flight/flight/gloster2.htm).

The Kit:

Modellers in 72^nd will no doubt be aware of the Frog mold which has appeared in the boxes of many other manufacturers over the years, but for us 48^th modellers I can only think of one mold being the Trayangle resin kit of this aircraft which is nigh impossible to find now. A couple of years ago Arba Products finally answered the call of us modellers interested in this particular aircraft by releasing a limited run resin multi media kit which is as you will read, not a bad effort.

Inside the box that contains a boring photo of the model as its eye catcher you will find seven very nicely cast resin parts in multiple small bags. The smaller parts are taken care of with white metal components which out number the resin parts by more than double, whilst the final two parts are vacform canopies, one being a spare. The real letdown for me was the instruction sheet which only contained brief assembly notes, history of the aircraft, some outline plans and other detail notes without any assembly diagrams to assist. There are no decal options supplied with the kit.

Construction:

Resin kits require the modeller to remove the parts from their casting blocks, sand down to their proper size and test fit before proceeding with construction. This kit is no different but the amount of work is not anywhere near as much as other resin kits, with most of the casting blocks already gone. Once the main components had been dealt with construction can begin.

The cockpit tub supplied by the kit is nicely cast and into are installed the kit supplied instrument panel, control stick and seat. The instrument panel is a white metal part and the seat is very nicely cast and includes harness detail. Almost everything else was scratchbuilt with a combination of stretched sprue and copper wire to simulate the tubing, wires and other instrumentation which can be seen in cockpit photos. For instance the canopy winch is something worth creating and adding to the cockpit interior. From studying a few cockpit photos there is very little in the kit cockpit that is actually accurately replicated to scale, for instance the tub itself is shaped wrong as it should allow the intakes to pass either side. Nevertheless with plenty of extra details added in by the modeller it looks busy and good, and can be painted aluminium for the prototype and early models or black for the later camouflaged ones.

The cockpit tub is installed into the front fuselage and is a very tight fit, hardly allowing for any room for glue to fix it in! The front fuselage is then added to the back fuselage and the one-piece wing section is affixed in the belly. With the tailfin, fairing behind the canopy and tailplane to fix into place this concluded the main assembly stage, it was a really quick build. All the parts were attached using superglue and there were a few gaps, particularly between the two fuselage parts, that needed to be filled. As I learned after completing the kit some nose weight is needed to prevent it from sitting on its tail, but finding a place in the tight confines of the forward fuselage is next to impossible.

The rest of the kit, other than the canopy of course, is supplied in white metal. The gear doors had to be cut in half to fit in the open position and the oleo legs were molded integrally with mud guard and wheel. The wheel well detail is quite nice and was painted aluminium for my aircraft. The vacform canopy is fairly thin but rather rough to see through if you opt for a closed canopy. I find it easier to hand-paint the frames at this point before cutting the canopy from its base mold. I used a scalpel to slice the main canopy section from the windscreen in order to depict an open cockpit. As Arba thoughtfully supply a spare canopy this was also painted in case I ruined the first. The windscreen was installed whilst the main canopy, which slides over the rear cockpit fairing, was left off til later. It was still necessary to do a dry run so there weren’t going to be hidden surprises or difficulties to contend with.

The initial painting stages were attended to with the whole model primed to spot and correct any blemishes. Once satisfied I painted the model in an overall matt aluminium finish to depict an early model Gloster prototype. There are a few things which need to be adjusted on the model to depict early prototype models. These are the removal of the port wing camera fairing, shortening of the nose wheel leg, removal of the bulge on the middle canopy frame and the installation of a pitot probe on the port wing only. The kit itself reproduces later Gloster models.

I find the work needed to reproduce a matt aluminium aircraft rather tedious. It is not a matter of simply spraying matt aluminium and leaving to dry, there is various shades of aluminium panels to depict, buffing to reproduce other effects and even adding thin washes of dark grey and black to mark out panel lines and provide other effects. These were all reproduced faithfully to depict the various panel differences on the aircraft.

Once the painting was completed the final external components such as pitot tube and thermal stripping, the latter added with bare metal foil, were scratchbuilt and added to the model. It’s pertinent to point out that you need to drill out a hole in the wing for the pitot probe to be installed. Since I could not get any nose weight into the model, a very tiny blob of blu-tak was added to the rear of the front wheel to make it look like a chock.

(Note: It is important to point out that the Aluminium finished version is only the flight test prototype with smaller exhaust and missing finlets - all later versions including this one were finished in camouflage, and it would be a more accurate depiction to apply camouflage to this model. The first in Ocean Greay/Dark Green over yellow and then later Dark Green/Earth camouflage over yellow. Thanks to Tony Pay for providing this information - Ed)

Decals:

No decals were supplied with this kit, but I ended up getting some suitable decals for the type from Fantasy Printshop which produce the prototype P and other decals which can be used. I think the very first model Glosters were naked in their matt aluminium form anyway.

Overall Recommendation:

For a resin kit this was very straight forward to put together with only six major assemblies to place together in addition to the cockpit tub. I am a bit disappointed there are some inaccuracies, particularly the lay out of the cockpit and given the rough looking vacform canopies, you do have to display it open! The kit builds up well with a moderate amount of filler used and the usual work associated with building resin kits. The kit builds a later Gloster model so adjustments need to be made for earlier examples as described above. Recommended for those interested in the type and who have a few kits under their belt or are able to work with resin.

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