Review: Airfix 1/48 De Havilland Chipmunk T.10
It is fairly fresh off the Airfix work desks and you may have a seen a few of them built already, however there might be some interest to see a few sprue shots and close-up stills.
First sprue is the wings. Beautiful they are and it seems to my eyes they pulled off the gull wing trailing edge well. This is a bit tricky area to get right I assume but it looks just fine.
Details are first class and little zipper Vs, rivets and a nice representation of the fabric areas on the aft section of the wings. Great stuff that will just pop with a bit of wash and dry brushing.
Next frame is the fuselage, stabilizer and a few other bits. Again, details will look stunning once pre-shaded and washed. The air scoops on the engine cowlings are hollowed out but may benefit from a bit of extra cleaning up just to thin out the material for a more faithful scale appearance. Take note there are two dudes ready to populate the cockpit if that is to ones preference.
Both front end...
...as well as rear of fuselage will look great once finished.
We can see a couple of ejection pin marks on the inside of the cockpit walls. However they should not be noticeable once all is painted black as per instructions. They will also be covered by part B 15, the section in front of the wind shield. So no worries.
Last large frame give you all the little details like cockpit, rudder, engine compartment and engine itself.
Look out for what type of rudder you are to use for your version. Not big difference but anyway.
Engine will look great if you chose to keep the cowling open.
The cockpit floor will be dressed up with some small pieces and will look great with some chipping. Did I say all cockpit will be entirely in black?
Transparent bits look alright. The builder gets two varieties of the side sections. One is having the rear side sections slightly bulged,this would be the normal way. From what I can see only one is right for any of the individual aircraft in this boxing. I think, the other having flat side sections and an extra frame bit, could be an early green house version? Anyway, keep an eye open for what the instructions say and go with that. A jig for the entire rearward sliding cockpit comes with the model and it is possibly very much suggested one uses it for correct angles.
There are some optional bit in this kit. A couple of extra antennas for the army crate, extra undercarriage legs if one wishes to build a flying aircraft with legs uncompressed (great idea) and anti-spin strakes. Engine cowling sections can be in closed or open positions, the later exposing a nice engine.
Decals look very nice and each chosen individual will get a whole heap of tiny dos and don´ts. Thanks to Airfix clever decal designer you will not have to paint and mask all those white-and-black-and-yellow sections on the propeller.
All in all it looks like a straight forward and quick build. Lots of lovely details and panel lines should please all builders. The four colour schemes are simple to mask yet all different. The camouflaged army aircraft looks inviting in a way but I guess most will go for any of the colourful trainers.
One thing to look for in building this kit is that the outer wings droop. To most folks eyes it is not noticeable. If you study some of posts with built up kits and compare them with some of the CAD drawings provide by Airfix showing the dihedral to good effect you'll spot it. Airfix does provide a wing spar and the center section of the wing is true. The fix for the outer wing is to remove some of the locating pins in the wing, an easy fix.
Other than that niggle, I bought a kit and totally agree with Stellan's description of this kit.
Thanks for stopping by. Great advice on the wing problem. I´ll take a look later on your fix before I start building it.
I have the kit and it looks really quite nice.
Can we assume it will be done up in some weird colours and markings, and a great story to come with it?
Very useful review and not a YouTube link in site. Many thanks for posting this.
George, you are most welcome.
Amen to that.
Thanks for the detailed review, of what looks to be a good kit, Stellan!
My pleasure, Spiros.
Just finished it. The cockpit canopy is hard work! The wing trailing edges are way too thick. Other than that, pretty good.
I just checked out your model, looks great! Thanks for the advice.