As usual, I was looking for information for another build, and found a photo of another plane I might like to build. The photo was of a Miles Magister that had a really cool paint scheme: half camo and half trainer yellow. I knew nothing about the Magister, so I did a little research into the aircraft. The Miles M.14 Magister, nicknamed the "Maggie", was produced for the RAF as a basic trainer from 1937 to 1941. The production run was 1203 aircraft. Designed to fulfill the elementary trainer role, it was eventually used in 16 primary flight schools as well as the Central Flying School. In 1940, 15 Maggies were fitted with bomb racks to determine if the plane could be used as a light bomber. The experiments showed that the Magister was not really suited to the bomber role. The Maggie was used throughout the war as an elementary trainer. Following the war, all of the Magisters were sold to 17 different countries, as well as to civilians.
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I began to search for a kit that I could build and came across one from Flashback, a company I had never heard of. I found some online build reviews that indicated that this was a pretty good short-run kit. One review even indicated this was an Eduard kit, but I suspect this confusion was because the photoetch in the kit was produced by Eduard. My search on Ebay found this kit, as well as several by Special Hobby. The Flashback kit was much less expensive than those from Special Hobby, so I got the Flashback kit for less than $20. According to Scalemates, the Flashback kit was originally released in 2001, and then was later released in 2 different versions by Special Hobby. I am glad I didn't buy the Special Hobby versions which cost a lot more.
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The kit is relatively detailed and includes plastic parts and a nice set of photoetch from Eduard. The only downside to this kit is that the wings and horizontal stabilizers attach with a butt joint, not my favorite but I will deal with it. I also found a nice set of decals from LF Models that includes the paint scheme that I wanted.
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1. Nice etch produced by Eduard
The build has been relatively stress-free, so far. I wanted to open up one of the entrance doors on the right side of the cockpit, so I carefully cut the door out for the rear cockpit with a razor saw. The raised lines on the inside of the cockpit which outlined the entrance door didn't match the resulting cutout, so I sanded away the raised lines and replaced them with some fine plastic strip. I sanded away a lot of the thickness of the door so that it would be more scale-like, then added some thin strips for internal structure, as well as a locking bar that hopefully matches online photos of the door.
When I assembled the wing halves, I discovered that the halves on one of the wings didn't match in length. The top of the wing was about 1.5 millimeters longer than the lower half. Hopefully everything will work out when I try to glue the wings to the fuselage.
That's about it for now. I am moving fairly slow on this kit to avoid doing anything dumb with this limited run model. Closing the fuselage is next, followed by a few rounds of putty, sand, repeat. Cheers.
10 additional images. Click to enlarge.
