Maquette 1/72 Armstrong Whitworth Whitley Mk.5/7

MAQUETTE 1:72 WHITLEY MK.V/VII

Reviewer: Dave Godden (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: April 2003

Kit Details:

1/72 Maquette Armstrong Whitworth Whitley Mk V / VII

Aircraft History:

The Whitley was designed and built originally to a bomber specification and although outclassed early on in the war in the night bomber role in its early marks the night bomber Mk V produced the Mk VII which fulfilled an anti submarine and reconnaissance role with Coastal Command until 1942. Numerous Mk V’s were rebuilt as long range Mk VII’s with extra fuel and ASV II radar which was first fitted to this type and later developments found themselves fitted to other coastal aircraft.

The Kit:

Although this kit labels itself as being the Mk V or Mk VII there are no further details of the Mk V after you open the box! The decal sheet contains only one aircraft – WL.R Z9138 of 612sqn around 1940. No information is forthcoming about this in the kit and was sourced from publications including Scale Aircraft Modelling Vol 15 No 6.

The parts are mounted on thick sprues and are of a very thick grey plastic which is very brittle – be warned!! The clear parts are also very brittle. All parts are thickly coated in flash and there are some sink marks.

Instructions:

The instruction sheet is small, cluttered and uninformative!! Has no painting guide or decal locations shown and is on one side of A4. It is not at all clear and would indicate the heritage of this kit being an ex Frog / Novo work .

Construction:

Starting with the interior the pilot figures are completely lifeless and the one- piece cockpit area is bland. A control column and instrument panel are provided but no decals or engraved detail for the instruments. There is no details in the turrets and the separate four gun tail turret interior seems to be out of scale and must be thinned considerably to fit. The engines lack details or depth in the radiator intakes and the air I chose to open up the air inlets on the sides of the cowls on my example. The undercarriage bays are not detailed but sturdy enough in the construction although here I did find that the two halves of the undercarriage legs did not meet the wheel hubs properly but perhaps that’s my fault.

The fuselage assembly at stage 6 is complex with the insertion of a spar across the wing roots, which I inadvertently forgot and had to shave down to fit later. Beware here because before you attempt to fit it all together a dry run is imperative where it will be found the nose glazing that fits behind the turret is too big for the hole in the fuselage moulding. A drastic enlargement of the hole is required and then it looks the part. At this point as well the holes for the aerials have to be cut out in the under nose and spine areas. Neither turrets rotate as the have no bases and are merely inserted into the fuselage.

The wing assembly comes next remembering to open up the holes in the lower wing for the ASV before cementing the two halves together. I found quite a bit of filler was required around the join of the engine nacelles to wing structure and because these butt join the alignment has to be carefully matched to get the right angle of attack of the engines.

The final stage shows all parts assembled and the tail needs particular attention as the tabs on the fins are not very deep and so I used superglue to get them to set with the fin to fuselage strut’s put in at the same time. It is now that you find that the fuselage top ASV aerials will not fit in the holes provided as they are not equidistant. These must be filled and re-drilled. The under-wing aerials seem chunkier than they should be and the fuselage ones are probably also but they do not appear so bad.

Having no reference on this particular aircraft I left it as was but there would appear to have two banks of four aerials on each fuselage side as well as the ones on the top. These are not provided in the kit.

Painting:

As there is no painting guide in the kit I used the box art and the previously mentioned SAM plans to apply the Extra Dark Sea Grey, Dark Slate Grey and White scheme of these aircraft.

Decals:

The decals were used and apart from the blue of the roundels appearing a little too toned down seem to be in the right colour and register and did not silver at all. They adhered well to the gloss surface and were then varnished over with matt. There are two large decals of a sinking ship included but as they are not shown on the box art or in any sources I had I didn’t use them.

Overall Recommendation:

This kit is the only one out there of the workhorse and as I wanted one I persevered with it. After a lot of work ( some in vain) it does look like a Whitley and it gave me a challenge. Perhaps MPM have one in the pipeline in their limited run range. Maquette have the monopoly with this and could have made more of an effort especially when the packaging alludes to a version which is not catered for in the kit unless you are an expert and know what a MkV looks like!

Dave's finished masterpiece of the Whitley with the SAM profiles underneath as quoted in text above

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