Miles M.9 Master Mk.I

Here's a Dora Wings build from a couple of months ago. The Master M.9 Mk.I was a 2-seat wooden trainer with an oval section fuselage covered with a plywood skin using a semi-monocoque approach, invited gull wing, and powered with a Rolls-Royce Kestrel XVI V-12 engine of 715 hp. The Master was derived from the M.9 Kestrel trainer of 1937 which was powered by a Kestrel XXX V-12 of 745 HP. The British Air Ministry had previously selected the De Havilland Don for an advanced trainer, but the Don proved to be unsatisfactory. Miles rebuilt the prototype M.9 Kestrel to get to the Master. It was a fast, strong, and fully aerobatic trainer with high performance that prepared new pilots for the frontline fighters of the day like the Hurricane and Spitfire. Throughout its production life, thousands of aircraft and various versions of the Master were produced to include target tugs, glider tows, some with radial engines such as the Bristol Mercury XX and the Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp Junior, and 26 single seat fighters built as the M.24 Master armed with six .303 machine guns for use as emergency fighters, but none ever saw combat.

The kit includes markings for 4 aircraft, and two sets of canopies, but no indications for which one to use. I went with the sloped windscreen version based on a photo I found and the box art. I used Tamiya paint and kit decals. The clear parts are the weakness of this kit. Not crystal clear, and poorly fitting - it took a lot of work to get everything to fit and I'm not too satisfied with the result, but it is what it is. The fit of the rest of the plastic was good, no filler required.

9 additional images. Click to enlarge.