World's Greatest Air Race: Clear Prop's 1/72 DH. Comet
A Bit O' History:
Built and designed by the De Havilland Aircraft Co, the DH.88 Comet was specifically constructed to participate in the October, 1934 MacRobertson Air Race (aka: “World's Greatest Air Race”) from RAF Mildenhall, England to Melbourne, Australia, a distance of 11,300 miles. Despite being built out of wood, The Comet was the first British aircraft to incorporate all the elements of modern fast monoplanes in one airframe and broke many aviation speed and long distance flight records.
In rapid succession, three Comets were completed and flight tested just six weeks before race time. All were sold to private owners. First built was G-ACSP “Black Magic” and the only Comet to be flown by its owner, Jim Mollison and wife Amy (Johnson) but they encountered serious engine issues and were forced to retire from the race after reaching SE Asia.
Next up was G-ACSS “Grosvenor House” which became the air race winner with a flight time of slightly less than 71 hrs. and the Comet I chose to model here.
The third, G-ACSR, was painted British Racing Green but remained unnamed, came in fourth. A total of 17 planes competed in this event.
Another two Comets were built post race but only G-ACSS and G-ACSP “Black Magic”, currently under restoration, survive today in addition to several flying full-scale replicas.
Grosvenor House
Race winner DH. 88, “Grosvenor House”, was named after the “Grosvenor House Hotel” that Comet owner Arthur Edwards managed. After the race, this red Comet was disassembled and shipped back to the UK, rebuilt and continued to set distance and speed records. It was destroyed in a landing accident and put up for salvage sale. Eventually it was completely rebuilt again and updated in the late 30's with a few modifications, notably a swivel tailwheel. It was restored to pristine flying condition in 1987 by the Shuttleworth Collection in Bedfordshire, UK where it resides today. Clear Prop has back dated "Grosvenor House" to its original 1934 configuration with the wood tail skid.
Shuttleworth Collection Comet in 2011. Note the swivel tail wheel added in the late 30's.
The Kit:
This is the very plane that Clear Prop studied thoroughly and has faithfully produced as 1/72 scale new tool this past summer 2024. It has an amazing amount of detail for a model this size and begs to upscaled to 1/48th. Most of the PE details inside the black cockpit can't be seen once the canopy is attached so I left some of them off. The intricate landing gear/wheel assembly can only be appreciated by turning the plane over and shining a light in the wheel wells.
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- 1. the gear is very detailed if you can see it!
The photo below will give you an idea of the actual size:
Assembly and great fit of all the parts went surprisingly well. Most of the tiny PE cockpit parts are potential fodder for the carpet monster so one has to make the call whether or not to use them all.
The Fun Part:
Assembling the 7 x 2 piece landing gear into the nacelles has to be done before painting and is a bit tricky as the instructions are vague and there is no assembly order spelled out. Study the Step 12 illustrations at least 5 times, and develop your own assembly plan before proceeding. Be ultra careful when removing the parts from the sprue. They are extremely fragile as I discovered. I found gluing the gear pieces first to part C13(C14) shown in Step 14 provides jig-like stability needed for the rest of this assembly shown in Step 12.
Attach the wheels, props, pitot tube and tail skid absolutely last, after the Comet is painted, decaled and almost ready for inspection.
Painting:
I highly recommend acquiring a precut canopy mask prior to painting. It sure made my life much easier than trying to mask off or painting by hand all the tiny window panes. Knowing how hard it is to get good results out of a red paint job, I made a mix of very light Tamiya pink acrylic and used that as primer and sprayed Tamiya gloss red over that. The canopy frame started by painting the frame black and applying pink and red over that.
Clear Prop's decals are well printed and thin but the white could be more opaque because an essence of red shows through under certain lighting. Some of the excess carrier film should be cut away on the large white letters. After all that was done, I sealed off the paint and decals with a misting of Alclad II Semi-Matte Klear Kote to dull the shine a bit as by the time the real Comet reached the finish line the weather had already taken its toll on the paint.
After the curing for a couple of days, I added the fiddly breakable stuff and called this Comet a winner.
Last Remarks:
Ukraine's Clear Prop Models is to be highly commended for this sweet little kit. The attention to detail is simply awesome and impressively molded. CP's designers obviously studied the Shuttleworth Comet thoroughly, but backdated “Grosvenor House” to its original 1934 configuration with optional modern decal markings and no swivel tailwheel.
Thanks for looking!
Video Link:
Here's the only film with sound documenting the race from England to Australia:
https://youtu.be/wlVlRlCoBJ0?si=C61rdnIP9DVE2tru
It's a superb model and you've done a very fine job on it. The kit decal sheet is incomplete though (missing the under fuselage race number and the upper wing degree markings).
Thanks for pointing that out. Once again, no model is perfect. Do you have any reference photo showing the location of those race numbers?
Marvellous Eric! Looks amazing, kit seems to be excellent. I’m always weary of white decals.
For sone reason, I always saw the Comet the granpappy of the Mosquito - related building techniques I guess.
Cool quick YT video of the DH88 showing some structure pictures.
After watching that video, no question about it, George. The Comet was the test bed that led to the Mosquito. Glad you posted it. Seems like the restoration of Black Magic is moving at a snail’s pace.
Awesome result and ditto article, Eric!
Always appreciate your comments Spiros.
That's a fine result, Eric @eb801
A great article and nice video about the World's Greatest Air Race.
Thanks John @johnb. There is also an Australian tv miniseries about this race that might be worth checking out but I have yet to see it. I believe only one season was produced.
Nicely done Eric.
Thanks, Allan @kalamazoo. Been a long time since I built a 1/72 scale plane. I was surprised I can still see all the tiny parts. I need to build more in this size.
1/72 rules !
I can see why.
G’day Eric (@eb801),
A great build of an historically significant aircraft.
The race participants would make a great theme build…
Liked!
That's a great theme group build idea, Michael @michaelt. Jacqueline Cochran also participated in this race from England to Melbourne. Must be a Melbourne museum decdicated to this event, no?
"Just ask the Axis..." 😉 Hard to beat that one, and this little red airplane model is hard to beat, as well! 👏 Great scale modeling, Eric @eb801! Interesting story too! 👍
Ha Ha. Good eyes, Gary @garybrantley. Yes, I did "ask the Axis".
😁 He knows everything! 😉
Well done! One of the best looking racers ever built.
I agree. Absolutely beautiful which is my main reason for building it, Chas @chasbunch.
@eb801 - Great work and a super result.
You're right this kit begs to be upscaled to 1/48, since the MikroMir 1/48 Comet gives its own unique definition to the term "difficult kit."
Thanks Tom. That’s why I said no thanks to the 1/48 MikroMir kit. You have any pull at Clear Prop? Maybe we should organize a mass request.
A real beauty of a build of beautiful looking aircraft, I think Airfix had one many years ago?
I believe Airfix still does Robert, @roofrat. Black Magic box art and decals in 1/72.
Well done, Eric. I’ve always liked these planes. Hoping Airfix takes a swing at them in 1/48.
Thanks John @j-Healy. Clear Prop has done all the work. They just need to bump it up to 1/48. Airfix would have to come up with an all new modern tool.
A great-looking model! I'll remember the pink undercoat trick for a nice red finish!
Thanks, Greg @gkittinger. If you use pink for a primer test it out on some "plastic" spoons so you can adjust the color intensity. The brighter the pink, the brighter the red and so on.
Beautiful work Eric (as usual). I can't imagine working at that scale.
Thanks Ken. Working in 1/72 wasn't as hard as I anticipated. All you need are magnifying glasses and a flashlight to find all the tiny parts that get gulped by the carpet monster.
That's a really outstanding De'Havaland. I really love all the Golden age racers and record breaking aircraft. Great build.
Thanks Clint. That era was also the Golden Age of Industrial Design which is why all those race planes were beauties.