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AMODEL 1:72 TOMASCHEVICH PEGASUS |
Reviewer:
Ryan Sutherland (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted:
10 March 2008
Amodel #7262
Ever been in a hobby shop, seen something on the shelf that the store owner has yet to sell and who probably wishes they didn’t stock? That is the feeling I got for this kit, especially when the store had slashed its price by 50% which made the kit just too good an opportunity to overlook, while picking up something completely from left field. In fact I had absolutely no reference or other material on this aircraft, so it was going to be one of those projects I was doing a little blindly, and hoping that in the end I was going to learn something about the aircraft as I went. So any knowledge I gained, no matter how small, was going to be more than I had before.
I have only had a couple of exposures to Amodel before so this was going to be a bit of an experience. The kit is packaged in normal Amodel box with the parts housed in a plastic bag but the instructions and decal sheet float loosely in the box. There are nearly 90 limited run injection molded parts in a light grey soft plastic. The parts are very heavy and the sprue gates thick with a fair bit of flash and ejector pin marks evident. There is adequate surface detail provided with it mostly engraved but some raised rivet detail is also evident. There is also one slightly foggy looking clear part for the windscreen canopy.
An 8 paged A5 sized booklet makes up the instructions in Russian and translated English. It begins with a short history and some technical data, followed by some painting information from the Humbrol range and sprue diagram. There are a dozen assembly steps which provide a good description of the construction process although later I would find that some guesswork is still needed, particularly given the lack of locating pins, and then of course following this is the colour and marking guide for the single type but three examples the kit will allow to be produced.
The engine and nose area is where the instructions say to begin construction although I started on the cockpit. The sprue needed to be washed in mild warm soapy water because it felt a bit waxy and you need some really good sprue cutters to remove the parts, plus a decent #11 blade and sandpaper to rub them down nicely.
The interior consists of a floor, instrument panel, crude looking bucket seat and control column all of which are not really very good in the detail department. There is a decal for the instrument panel which is better than nothing. The cockpit sub assembly goes onto one fuselage half with the other to close over it. It is a very poor fit and needed some carving at the back of the floor so the wings could fit later. Do a lot of test fitting and the appropriate carving to avoid this problem as I had to backtrack a bit once I tried to shut the fuselage halves.
The engines, nacelle and nose area all needed plenty of dry fit runs, rubbing down and some trimming before they would fit very well. The exhausts were a terrible fit, and out came the carving knife again… I was already finding that my usual foray into more mainstream kits did not prepare me overly well for this particular limited run kit – are they all this frustrating?
I then sorted myself out, getting my wits about myself and reminding myself that it IS a limited run kit and therefore needed extra care, attention and the dry fit runs to spot any problems in advance. I have read so many reviews on SMAKR, so I should know this even without having done any Amodel kits previously. So I read a few Amodel and MPM reviews on SMAKR (Mark I have to say you run such a fantastic resource for us all thank you!) to give me a little guidance and from hereon I found the project much more enjoyable as I was prepared to put in a little bit of elbow grease!
A lot of rubbing down around the fuselage joins with a bit of filling and sanding helped to achieve a nice smooth finish, albeit the removal of some of the rivet detail in the process. The wing halves also needed very careful alignment to achieve a flush fit and benefit from a bit of a wet ‘n dry rub over the leading and trailing edges. This is where it is very important that the earlier test fits and removal of some of the cockpit floor behind the pilot has been carried out for the wings would not fit otherwise.
In the final stages I added the windscreen canopy which was also a very poor fit, and needed some careful rubbing down where it meets the fuselage in an attempt to thin it out a little and sit nicely on the model. The result unfortunately still shows up an imperfect alignment. Added all the small bits later, which need very very careful removal from the sprue given their delicacy and a reasonable presumption they will break without too much coercion.
There is only one type of aircraft this kit produces which is quoted as Dark Green (H114) over Hellblau (H65) undersides, a presumably standard scheme worn by Russian aircraft of the era. There are however three different aircraft you can produce, each being one of the three prototypes, the only difference being their number! However, during construction you are advised of two different exhausts for the three different examples and that had me lost.
In a word, yuck! On the small decal sheet they look okay, with reasonably sharp register but there is plenty of carrier film which serves as the first warning. Once they hit water they assumed the foetal position like a traumatised young child and uncurling them is a task in itself that only ends with water everywhere and a shredded decal! They silvered a lot and didn’t really like to sit on the model. However, I managed to use most of the decals supplied which are really only badges, numbers and red stars.
In my opening paragraphs above I mentioned how little reference material I had on this aircraft so on that basis I am hardly going to be an expert in this area. When comparing the measurements of the model with what is quoted in Amodel’s instruction sheet, it comes up short in length by a couple of mm or so but oversized in span by nearly a mm, so it is not quite dimensionally correct in proportion. The few grainy photos and other information I have suggests the finished model looks otherwise quite accurate.
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