The Kit

Gavia's Lysander kits are not new on the market and I think, it has been written a lot about them. This product is the first main-stream injection moulded kit of this aircraft in 1:48 scale after 30-or-so years. Generally, the parts are nicely done, with no flashes and almost invisible form separation line. The light grey plastic, which Gavia used, is very "user friendly", not too hard, not too soft. Just enough to sand it or cut it. Small parts are well executed as well, which is not so common thing in new companies, although there is some lack of this sharpness we can see in "big boys" boxes (Tamiya, Dragon, Hasegawa). Some inexperience in technological matters can be seen on this kit as well -thickness of fuselage walls and, mainly, on canopy clear parts. If you decided to sand them down, or replace them, it's totally up to you. I left 'em like they are and it doesn't look too bad... And of course, in box you find very good decal sheet of quality typical for most of Czech manufacturers of to-days.

Building Process - interior

Interior of the kit is made up from quite a few parts. There is a frame tubing with seats, dash board, radio equipment, petrol tank and rear floor, added on to it, which, after assembly sits into fuselage halves. I added few copper wires to simulate cables leading inside the cockpits and glued wires from the back of the gauges of the dash board. I added a few details on pilot's seat, like rudder pedals adjusting mechanism, reworked face of dash board and detailed radio operator - gunner's "office". After painting and weathering of separate parts I have finally put all interior bits together. I used excellent 4+ Publication on Lysander (ISBN 80-902559-1-4), extensively during this project, and, as usual, there is all what modeller needs to build and super-detail his kit.

Dash board, on the left, with some detailing work already done and, on the right, finished and painted interior frame structure with dash board, seats, fuse boxes and some wires added. There are still few bits missing, most noticeably petrol tank, which sits in the empty space under wing cross section. But these are added later on in the building process without any problems...

Building Process - exterior

I wanted to build Lysander Mk.II instead of Mk.III, so I have to make some changes. The most obvious difference is shorter engine cowling without blister fairings on it and older design of rear canopy opening. This is not too difficult to repair, all you need is just few minutes to cut triangular windows off the kit's rear sliding canopy and cut the same ones from clear plastic sheet and glue them on clear side panels. And sand down parts of fuselage halves, to accommodate this. To alternate engine cowling is easy task, as well. Just shave off all the fairings on the cowling and take about 1mmm off just in front of cooling gills. After all this was done, I made new gills from plastic sheet in open position.

Probably at this point I have decided to rebuild engine. Lysanders Mk.II had Bristol Perseus XII built in, instead of Pegasus which was Mk's. I & III power plant... I, basically, scratch built whole unit. I used some plastic bits and pieces for main engine body and 4mm diameter rods for valves. This task took the most of the time I spent on Lysander kit. As I don't have the ability of casting my own resin parts, so every valve was carved by hand, using electric drill and scalpel tip. I even gave up once... Engine, I ended up at the end, is probably not a perfect copy of original, but I am more than happy with it and it looks differently from Mk.III power plant and that's important. The rest of building process was very simple task, although those "V" shaped wing support struts needs to be lengthened. 2mm each will keep wings in right position. Because model is painted in sub-assemblies everything must be adjusted and dry fitted very carefully, before first coat of paint is applied.

Painting Process

Painting process started not after masking of canopy. Tamiya masking tape is excellent for this task. I resprayed whole thing with Humbrol No.1, gray basecoat. After one day of drying time Humbrol 29, Dark Earth and 30, Dark Green. Under surfaces are painted in Aluminium, mix of 56 and 191. All marking is sprayed on using plotter cut masks. Stencils and 1st Fighter Squadron logos are decals from the kit decal sheet and Max Decals, respectively. I haven't use any preshading technique, but I sprayed different shades of basic colours, layer after layer, darker and lighter as I pleased. Then, some oil washes and dry pastels were used. I sealed everything with help of Humbrol Satin Cote. To make paint work more weathered, I masked off all metal and plywood areas and oversprayed "fabric" with few coats of Humbrol Matt Cote.

Finished Model

This model represents No.62 of Irish Air Corps as it looked before 1942 colour scheme changes. But I made some mistakes. I had no pictures of starboard sides of any of I.A.C. Lysanders so I wrongly applied fuselage boss orange right - green left. It should be the opposite way, or simply: green always forward. As well, wing tricolours should be moved more to the wing tips. I am not quite sure about top surfaces, though. And…this twin Browning machine gun... I knew that this gun was never used in "green" aircrafts, but I think, that looks great and fits into observer's cockpit nicely. Oh yea, and this is one of Aires lovely little jewels, Browning M1 (4179).




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