British
Which 72nd scale Spitfire kit?
By Bruce Archer
Sep 11, 2006, 10:55

Two Stage Merlins: The Venturas are the best. No doubt. The only problems are cost and availability. Airfix, Frog ( and all of its subsequent releases), Italeri, and KP have major problems and are not worth MY ( notice I said my, I believe one should build whatever they want and how they want) time. The Hasegawa is too thin, short and has a prop and spinner which needs replacement.

The Heller MK.XVI needs a new lower wing ( the molded on radiators are horrid) and the Matchbox kit is better shaped than most, but is molded poorly ( almost no detail).The MPM and Special Hobby PR Spitfires
appear to be too short and have minor shape problems, but I still have to go over them ( 18 month old triplets put a damper on things such as model building).

Griffons: The Ventura FR.18 is the best, but not without its faults ( the carb intake for example). The Academy is molded nicely, very detailed but the fuselage is a bloated characture of the Spitfire. This kit should be
bought for deatil parts ( cheaper than buying resin!)

The Fujimi kits are very fiddly, have fit problems and again seemed to have missed the shape of the fuselage, esp. with the high backed versions. The MPM 18 and PR.19 are some of there early efforts and are crude, but appear to have the shapes close. The Frog is a mess. The Modelnews Mk.XII is very rough, and the Eduard 21 is not quite as nice as the Ventura Griffons.

Seafires: Ventura's Mk. 15,17,and 47 ( all of which I do have!) are very nice. The Pegasus 47 is rough. The only other Seafires I know of are Pavla's L.III ( crude, again got the gull wing wrong amonst other things) and Hi-Planes IIc and L.III. These are nice, and wish I could afford more.

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