[chris190]

This is from an IPMS Austria kit, design by Walter Schweiger (have seen him on the Kartonbau.de site); quite expensive to get in England but excellent english instructions, design and artwork, although the card it's printed on is extremely thin and I really can't imagine that a decent model at the quoted scale of 1/33 would be at all possible - I'd love to see one but I've only come across two examples, one here and one on Kartonbau, both of which died out at an early stage unfinished.

For reasons of consistency with my HP Victor and because of my extreme reservations re the adequacy of the cardstock, I had the kit copied at 1/50 scale and on 200 gsm card.

Problems occurred at frequent intervals and the first two weeks construction was largely abortive, mainly because the thicker material seemed to affect the larger fuselage sections and the formers supporting them; I sort of got round this by reprinting the formers at 65% of the original instead of 66% and wrapping paper around them until I got a reasonable fit. Even so, the reverse curves of the plating, particularly on the underside, tended to be unhelpful in getting a good finish.

The engine intakes went together really well but I didn't check the positioning of the rather scanty wing framework relative to the plating and the slots in the top of the fuselage into which it's glued and so ended up with the wing slightly further forward than it should be. The design of the wheels is also relatively successful with reducing diameters of thicker card internal formers helping to give some impression of rounded edges to the printed tyre components.

I left out the cockpit and internal wheel well detail as the former is too small at this scale (plus difficulties in doing a decent job on the glazing) and the latter looked rather unrealistically flimsy compared to the prototype as well as being pretty well hidden (unless I decide to hang the model from the ceiling!)

Really not a kit for the beginner and also a bit humbling for the more experienced modeller (i.e. me on occasions when I nearly abandoned it!) Nonetheless (from a distance and in a favourable light), it's good to have this model of such a fabulous prototype.

Best wishes to all

Chris