Part 1: First Look

MSRP: $79.00 Available only from the manufacturer: www.wingnutwings.com I am a new member of the IPMS Review Corps so a little background might be good. I have been a modeler since I was 10 years old. My father was a career navy man so I got to see a lot of ships and planes over the years. For my 10th birthday in 1956 dad brought me the entire Aurora WW1 series of 1/48 aircraft, the Camel, Nieuport 17, Fokker DVII, DI tripe and the Albatross DIII. I was hooked. I am also U.S. Army veteran, Tank Commander from 1965 until the end of 1969. I am one of the lucky ones, I didn't have to go to the Nam I spent my time at Ft. Wainwright Alaska. I am now a retired auto worker from the Chrysler truck plant here in the St. Louis area. For my first review, I was lucky enough to get to review one of the first offerings from Wingnut Wings. This is a new company from New Zealand who specialize in 1/32nd Scale WWI subjects (at least for now). The kit I will be building is a beautiful model of one of England's biggest surprises for the Axis flyers.

Upon my first inspection of the kit I was struck by box art that is good enough for framing and parts sprues that were neatly packaged without jamming any of the parts. I didn't find any dimples and seams that would have to be removed with more than light sanding. The detail is outstanding. The kit has high quality Cartograf decals included for 5 aircraft. There are 174 high quality injection molded plastic parts which include optional bombs, open or closed radiator grills, early and late undercarriage, fine in-scale rib tape detail, and a highly detailed RR Falcon V12 engine with two or four blade props. A close look at the very detailed instruction book shows the modeler that each section, cockpit, Fuselage, wings and engine etc. are all complete models in themselves.

The cockpit went together well with me only having to shave off a little plastic on the gas tank halves, parts A32 &A33, for them to fit snug. I also had to remove the photoetched cloth storage bags, part P8, and soften them because the brass PE material is to heavy a gauge to work with. The end result came out very good as you can see by the picture.

This is a blast! I am now starting step 2 "the fuselage" and 3 the wings. Before anything, I want to thanks Richard Alexander and Wingnut Wings for the chance to review this superb offering. More very soon.