Magna Models 1/72 Miles M.25 Martinet TT.1

MAGNA MODELS 1:72 MILES M.25 MARTINET TT.1

Reviewer: Tim Beales (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 8 June 2002

The Aircraft

Miles Aircraft Ltd. was a relatively short-lived independent company that existed around, and just after World War 2, before it was swallowed up in the consolidation that occurred in the British aircraft industry post 1946. During its brief life, Miles produced some of the most original light aircraft designs and concepts to have come from Britain, including the successful series of civilian (later impressed) aircraft, such as the M.11 Whitney Straight, the M.16 Mentor, and the M.38 Messenger (personally used by Monty), as well as esoteric concepts, such as the tandem-wing M.35 and M.39 designs. Miles' most famous aircraft were the Master and Magister trainers for the RAF, and the target tugs, Martinet and Monitor.

The Miles M.25 Martinet arose from a response to Air Ministry specification 12/41, and the first prototype flew in 1942. The Miles Martinet was the first RAF aircraft specifically designed to be built as a target tug. It was based on the existing Miles Master Mk.2, and those of you with the old Frog Miles Master Mk.3 kits (recently reissued by Eastern Express) will see a strong resemblance. There are some differences between the two aircraft: the Martinet was longer than the Master Mk.2 to counter the weight of the target towing equipment, the Martinet was heavier than the Master Mk.2, the Martinet was slower than the Master Mk.2, the and the Martinet canopy was different. The Martinet was a two-seat aircraft of wooden construction with fabric surfaces, and was powered by an 870-hp Bristol Mercury radial piston engine, with a top speed of about 240 mph, and a cruising speed of some 200 mph. Over 1,700 Martinets were built, and they were in use well into the 1950s. Many were exported, and there was a radio-controlled drone version (the Queen Martinet), and a glider tug version. There were plans for a trainer version of the Martinet, but this lost out to the Boulton Paul Balliol.

Kit Parts

My kit arrived from Hannants in the UK in the standard Magna format: a sturdy white cardboard box that resembles a half-cut house brick with an outline sketch of a Miles Martinet of 722 Naval Air Squadron in 1945 on a green paper sheet pasted onto the front of the box. Like all Magna kits I have seen, the box opens either side by sliding out the centre section, whereby the resin parts, the vacuformed canopy, the white metal parts, and the instructions fall out on to the floor from the open sides. All the parts are bagged separately. The instructions for this kit are an impressive seven pages of A4.

The first sheet provides a brief history of the aircraft with technical data and some references for the modeller. This is followed with notes on where to obtain decals (see later), and general notes on making resin kits.

At first glance, there are not a great number of parts to this kit. The main resin parts breakdown are: solid port and starboard wings, two fuselage halves, two tailplanes, a rudder, a spinner, the cockpit interior section, and an optional target box. The white metal parts consist of: two undercarriage legs, two wheels, two exhausts, two sets of undercarriage struts, the propeller, a pitot, a tail wheel, a control column, and an optional tropical filter for a SEAC aircraft. In addition, there are optional winch gears for either the wind driven or electric types. In my kit, the resin was the usual Magna golden colour resin, with curiously, one of the tailplanes and rudder in a whiter resin than the rest of the components, and these two parts looked a bit more "chalky" than the other components.

Construction of the kit

As for all resin kits, superglue must be used for gluing, and the parts need to be washed in warm, soapy water before construction. The resin had to be primed before any painting could be attempted, and I used Humbrol No. 1 primer for this purpose. The interior was painted in the usual Interior Green (Humbrol No. 78). Some longeron details were provided on the interior side in the resin casts, and I highlighted these. However, I found out later that after the interior and the winch gear were added, and the two fuselage halves were joined, very little could be seen of the interior through the canopy. The cockpit assembly was a single unit comprising of a control panel, a seat with belts, and a space at the rear for the winch gear. I painted the control panel black (Humbrol No. 86) with silver dials (Humbrol No. 11) and the seat leather (Humbrol No. 62) with brown belt straps (Humbrol No. 133) and aluminium buckles (Humbrol No. 56) (in the instructions Magna suggest dark green seats). I painted the control column black (Humbrol No. 86) and fitted it into the base between the seat and instrument panel as per the instructions.

The wind driven winch sits on the inner longerons on the side of the fuselage behind the pilots chair, and the electric winch gear sits on the floor of the cockpit assembly, also located behind the pilots chair. I opted for the wind driven winch, and so painted this in the colours suggested by Magna before gluing it in the appropriate place. There are some additional cast components to the rear of the cockpit assembly base, including a hexagonal shape. I do not know what these are, and Magna does not say, so I can't comment any further, except that the hexagonal shape is obviously meant to be connected to the same shape that appears on the underneath of the aircraft. I did not know what colour to paint these internal parts, but guessed at a darker colour than cockpit green, and left it at that. They are not visible through the canopy in my model anyway.

The cockpit assembly is designed to sit on two ridges on each fuselage side, but I found on dry fitting that the two sides would not mate properly when the cockpit assembly was resting on them. I could only make the two sides fit when I cut away the two ridges on each side. There was a slight bowing on one of the fuselage halves. This actually helped with the gluing, as I used a bulldog clamp on the tail section and then glued the two fuselage halves at the front, and then made my way towards the back of the model. Once glued, the fuselage fit was pretty good, and only a small amount of filler and sanding were required. A small casting bubble was also present in my model underneath the tail section, and this needed filling. I then filed the front casting lugs away and sanded the front to form a flat surface at the joint lines.

The two wings were separated from their casting lugs using a saw, and sanded down to the joint lines. It was here that I met with a little difficulty. The excellent views of the Magna instructions show that the wings are angled to form a gull shape as in the Miles Master Mk.3. There was a considerable gap between the fuselage and my wings when aligned at the correct angle, and I had to use quite a bit of excess plastic and Humbrol Model Filler to make amends. Once sorted however, the wings looked correct, and the front view gull shape was fine. The wings on this model are solid resin with recesses for the undercarriage. There were a few small casting bubble holes around the raised undercarriage areas in my kit, and these needed filling. The port wing has a pre-cut section for the landing light. The two tailplanes went on no trouble, as did the rudder (including the slight curvature as pointed out by Magna). Almost no filler was used here. The next job was fitting the single piece cowing which fitted more or less OK, it only required a tiny bit of filler, and the single piece optional target box also fitted fine. The propeller and spinner were a little awkward to get to fit, and needed some cleaning up, but they were eventually OK. The rest of the white metal parts required some cleaning of the flash, and these were painted before final attachment to the model.

Two sets of transparencies are provided by Magna for the canopy and the landing light cover. I encountered no problems in fitting either of these as they were pretty pliable (I usually have trouble with vacuform canopies splitting), and they attached well with Humbrol Clearfix. The extras have gone in the spares box. There were no serious problems in fitting the undercarriage sections: I only had to redrill one of the undercarriage holes that was too small for its white metal leg. The two long exhausts needed a tiny bit of filler at the attachment point on the front cowling.

Decals

Colour call outs in the instructions are in generic names only ("dark green" etc.), and Magna supply no decals with the kit. However, this may be explained by the fact that the instructions give details for 21 aircraft! There are options for the British RAF, RN, and SEAC, the Portuguese Aeronautica Militar, the Irish Air Corp, the Swedish Svensk Flygtjanst, the Belgian Air Force, and the Armee de l'Air. Many of these are colourful subjects, and would stand out as being unusual in any collection. Magna provide the address and contact details of appropriate decal suppliers. I used decals from my spares box, and so selected aircraft RG988/RBK of 776 Squadron FAA at Woodvale in 1945. I used Modeldecal RAF C1-type roundals on the fuselages with Modeldecal sky letters and black serials. I used Modeldecal RAF C-type and B-type roundals on the lower and upper wings.

I hand painted my model, painting the upper surfaces in the typical British disruptive pattern supplied by Magna in the instructions using Humbrol No. 29 for Dark Earth, and Humbrol No. 30 for Dark Green. The undersurfaces were painted overall in trainer yellow (Humbrol No. 24) with a black (Humbrol No. 33) stripe pattern supplied in the instructions by Magna, which was applied after masking. The hexagonal shape on the underside of the aircraft that I mentioned earlier is shown in the instructions as being different to the black stripe that goes across it, but Magna do not give any colour details at all for this, so I guessed and painted it gloss black (Humbrol No.21).

Underwing black serials were applied using Modeldecal post war RAF serials as per the Magna instructions. The wind driven winch was painted in natural metal (Humbrol No. 53) with a wooden prop (Humbrol No.110). Magna suggest the winch prop was set at 90� at rest, but I did not bother to do this with mine. I painted the cowling front a bronze colour, and used the same colour for the two long exhausts (Humbrol No. 55), although at least one Martinet photo I have seen appears to show these as being painted.

Accuracy

David Mondey's "British Aircraft of World War II" says the dimensions of the Martinet were: span = 39 ft 0 in, and length = 30 ft and 11 in. My model comes in at a span of 16.5 cm and a length of 12.5 cm (38 ft 11 in and 29 ft 6 in, respectively), so I would say that's pretty much spot on in this scale and medium.

Overall

As the mainstream kit manufacturers will never make this sort of aeroplane as an injection kit, we can only expect a resin or a vacuform kit of the Martinet. So, if you want a Martinet model, then this is it. As Magna seem to be the only company presently tackling the more rare RAF types, then I am necessarily a fan - despite their hefty prices!

In all, this was a very enjoyable kit to build, and makes a super model. There is a wide choice of decorative schemes to choose from. Owing to some of the fiddly bits (those wings), I would heartily recommend it to someone who wants to tackle a non-basic resin kit. It's good fun, and sits well with the other Miles aircraft on my model shelf.

� Tim Beales 2002

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