Tamiya 1/72 DH Mosquito B MK.4/PR MK.4 (converted to PR.XVI)

TAMIYA 1:72 D.H. MOSQUITO B/PR MK IV
(Converted to PR MK.XVI)

Reviewer: Peter Hobbins (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 16 January 2005

Kit Details:

Tamiya 1:72 deHavilland Mosquito B/PR.IV (converted to PR.XVI)

Aircraft History:

The Mosquito is widely known and lauded for its sterling service with the RAF, so I won’t add any more with regard to general history – for a more detailed overview see Kevin Ronayne’s review of the Hasegawa/Revell 1:72 Mosquito kit.

In RAAF service, the Mosquito was somewhat more problematic. The aircraft’s wooden structure suffered a lot more in the harsh Australian environment, and even through the type was manufactured in Australia, production really didn’t get into its stride and only a few airframes lasted long in RAAF service. I have a local connection in that one of the early Australian-built aircraft came apart in the air on a test flight over my suburb (Leichhardt in Sydney).

The earliest Mosquitoes in RAAF service were a small number of PR.XVIs imported from Britain to conduct much-needed aerial reconnaissance of New Guinea and the Netherlands East Indies as the Allied forces pushed back the Japanese in 1944–5. I have always liked the PRU blue schemes and two-stage Merlin engines on these aircraft, and decided this was the Mosquito variant I wanted to build.

The Kit:

While the old Matchbox kit of the Mosquito B.IX comes with two-stage Merlins, I decided to opt for the more recent Tamiya B/PR.IV as a base, adding an out-of-production set of engines from Paragon.

I usually build older or limited-run kits, so this relatively new (1998) offering from Tamiya was a different kettle of fish! Everything was packed in a sturdy box, the clear sprues were wrapped separately, there were two poly caps for attaching the propellers and overall the plastic just oozed quality. Ejector pin marks were generally in unobtrusive places, there were no sink marks or moulding flaws, panel lines and rivets were finely engraved, and quite a bit of moulded-in detail is included. As a further benefit, the sprues have some commonality with the FB.VI kit, so you get a nice selection of bombs and rockets for the spares box, plus a choice of shrouded or unshrouded engine exhausts and two different styles of wingtips. A few holes need to be opened up if you are making the PR version, but that is about the only tricky bit. The instructions are quite clear and easy to follow, and the marking sheet is impressively extensive (although the instructions aren’t always clear on where all of the decals go). The decals are on the thick side and interestingly, the sheet includes seat harnesses and an instrument panel if you wish to use them instead of painting the kit parts (or making your own harnesses). If you want a B.IV or PR.IV Mosquito, a really nice model can be built straight out of the box, no doubt about it!

Construction:

Of course, I couldn’t leave it at that! The most fiddly bit about constructing my model was getting the Paragon engines to fit, so I started there. These resin engines are nicely moulded and cast, but have thick attachment lugs that have to be cut off (I used a Dremel tool for this). It quickly became apparent when I tried to fit them to the cut-off Tamiya cowlings that the resin parts had been designed for the older Airfix kit, which meant a lot of fiddling around getting them to sit right. I also found later on that they had a slightly smaller frontal diameter than the Tamiya spinners, which I corrected as best I could by sanding back the spinners to almost match the cowls. Anyways, I finally had the cowlings assembled, after which I had to fill in some ejector pin marks on the inside of the undercarriage bay with Gunze Mr Surfacer, then re-create some of the raised detail I had lost in attaching the Paragon engines.

The wings came next. The RAAF’s PR.XVIs had leading-edge landing lights rather than the earlier underwing style, so I glued the kit landing lights into the wing lowers but then had to fill and sand them smooth. I cut the ailerons free for repositioning, then joined the wing halves. After this a bit of wire mesh was added to the radiator front and back faces prior to adding the cover plates for them; this helps give a more realistic look to the radiators. I selected the correct wingtip options after consulting my references, then finally the engine cowlings could be added. Although I had to fiddle a lot with the Paragon bits, the kit parts all clicked into place nicely. I then added the ailerons at suitable opposing deflections and used a file to hollow out a new landing light area, which was then filled with a block of clear sprue and sanded to blend into the leading edge. Unfortunately the kit only comes with the 50-gallon wing tanks and I needed 100-gallon ones, so I ended up making a master according to plans supplied from the National Archives by fellow RAAF modeller Fred Harris (thanks Fred!), casting some copies in resin until I had two decent ones to add to my model.

To allow for the different variants to be kitted, Tamiya designed the fuselage so that alternate nose sections can be attached. The join is partly hidden by the radiators once the wings are attached, so this doesn’t result in too much extra sanding work. I then set about adding a little extra detail to the cockpit and nose area: using photoetch seat harnesses, adding fuse wire to replicate some extra piping/wiring, and removing a few details not seen on the PR versions. Otherwise I left most of the kit cockpit detail in place, and when the finished interior is seen under the canopy most of the extra work wasn’t all that visible anyways. One little point to keep in mind here is that the bottom of the cockpit access door (which forms part of the cockpit floor when closed) can be seen from the outside via a porthole in the fuselage access hatch; this means you need to paint both the main cockpit section and its underside in the interior colour.

At this stage I also cut free the rudder and elevators, then attached the tailplanes to the fuselage sides, prior to joining the halves. This allowed me to cut off the attachment tabs (which are otherwise really visible in the tailwheel bay), smooth the area out with filler, then add a little detail to the tailwheel bay. I also added a small sliver of plastic strip to cover over the fuselage join line in this area once the fuselage halves were joined. On the Mossie the tailwheel bay is quite prominent so I felt it deserved a bit of extra attention.

Checking my reference photos, I had to drill out a few extra camera ports, and copied the two cameras supplied in the kit to sit behind these additional holes. The cockpit section comes as a separate insert that is attached to two sturdy wing spars, so I glued it into one fuselage side then finally the fuselage halves could be joined together. These fitted very well, although I did have to do some fine slicing of the bomb-bay doors to get them to fit snugly.

Suddenly the kit was nearly there! The wings slotted nicely onto the spars to form the correct dihedral with almost no seam, the elevators and rudder were reattached at deflected angles, and the canopy and nosecone were attached. I had bought several aftermarket vacform canopies, but none came close to fitting the specific shape of the Tamiya cockpit opening. I therefore had to stick with the rather thick kit piece, with its fiddly additional parts for the bulged side windows. To make matters trickier, the PR.XVI had a further bulged window on the canopy roof, so I had to cut out some of the kit canopy and add in a vacformed bulge on top. The nosecone, however, was a vacform replacement from Falcon.

The undercarriage assembled nicely but I added a little detail – drilling out the lightening holes in the mudguard braces and adding some brake lines – then it slotted very neatly into the undercarriage bays (which I had previously painted and weathered). The undercarriage doors did have some ejector pin marks, so I filled these with Mr Surfacer, then cut off the hinge attachment lugs and sanded the inside of the doors back. I also used this opportunity to reshape the door hinges moulded on to the cowling sides – which were much too thick – so that they more closely resembled the real thing.

Painting & Decals:

The kit provides three options – two B.IVs and a PR.IV, with a lot of stencils in common (in red for the bomber with black undersides, and in black for the other two aircraft). As mentioned before, the kit decals are thick and this was a bit of a problem on my finished model, where the stencil carrier film can be quite clearly seen despite several varnish coats.

My model used RAAF decals and serials from the spares box, mixed in with a lot of kit stencils. These sat on the all-over PRU blue finish (an Aeromaster colour straight from the bottle that seems a bit light in tone to me), which was then post-faded and post-shaded in various areas to break up the monotony. While PR machines are generally well cared for, I added some dirt and staining in a few places as the RAAF PR Mossies operated is a very harsh, hot, dusty environment. After a wash with thinned raw umber artist’s oil paint, the final step was adding aerial wire from invisible mending thread.

Conclusion:

This Tamiya kit falls together beautifully, and with the exception of a few ejector pin marks in the undercarriage area, is wonderfully engineered and detailed, and will make a fine model right out of the box. You can dress it up with some extra work in the tailwheel and main undercarriage bays, but otherwise it’s fantastic as it is, although a little fiddly in a few places (nose area, wingtips) due to the use of the moulds for other variants. The decals are probably the weakest point, but perhaps a few more varnish coats would solve that problem. My conversion to a PR.XVI added a small amount of work, but if you ask me if it was worth the extra price over adapting one of the older kits – then yes it was. It really is an A-grade kit.

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