1/72 Airfix De Havilland DH 88 Comet

Gallery Article by Gabriel Stern on Nov 16 2009

 

    The De Havilland DH 88 Comet is, for many modelers, a celebration of beauty. Its racy but elegant lines boast refinement and charm.
   The story of the type is well known or can be easily accessed so I won’t be repeating it here, but perhaps a few modelers will not know that the red machine popularized by Airfix decades ago was not at any rate the only one produced.
   The model (G-ADEF) presented here represents “Boomerang”, a machine (The fifth and last built) that didn’t participate in the MacRobertson Air Race of 1934 but later on was engaged in record attempts.
   The DH 88 design (machine G-ACSS) not only won the above-mentioned race but also achieved fame for its records and feats.
   I built this model when I was a child, and then again more than a decade ago
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Gal6/5001-5100/gal5064_DH-88_Stern/00.shtm
so this is the third time. The Airfix model didn’t change much and some (but not unreasonable) work must be done in order to squeeze a decent replica from it.

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   The kit I got was a generous gift from fellow modeler and friend Jim of Pugetopia. He has a farm where he raises Midget Furry Black Seals that are trained to cook, mow the lawn and sand the decks. So thanks to Jim.
   Work on the model started by separating all control surfaces, deleting the parody of cockpit (a flat slab and two humanoid heads) and creating a recess to later install the flaps.
   An interior was created as per images, mostly scratchbuilt but also using a couple of photoetched parts. The canopy was used to create a vac copy together with a clear nose tip as per images. Decals were produced for the two instrument panels and compasses.
   The general fit of the Airfix kit, as countless generations of modelers know by now, is not superb. The main problems are the wings and the engine gondolas. The latter are just empty shells that have a sore-looking front. I removed their locating pins as they are there to misalign the assembly. The left horizontal stabilizer has its slot on the fuselage misaligned; you have to file the slot down to make the stab half seat correctly. A basic resemblance of the engines was built and glued inside of the nacelles as per images to provide something to look at through the front opening. An exhaust that can also be seen in photos was also added using simple soldering wire. The landing gear is kind of simplistic. Now, for some reason, I didn’t notice all of the above when I was a kid. I was happy then making engine noises around the living room table and I am happy now working on the model exercising skills and learning new solutions.

   I added styrene discs to the wheels to compensate for some molding flaws. The props followed suit, as the blades are of dubious shape, flat, and the spinner has little to do with the real thing. Blades were removed, the spinner smoothed out and the division seen in photographs engraved. There is a minute disc at the very tip of the spinner which depicts the automatic mechanism to change pitch in the original, and a tiny bit in the middle of the disc.
Nav lights and a tail skid were made too, together with the counterweights for the tail control surfaces.
   Floquil silver and Model Master blue were used on the model, which was previously primed and given a gloss black enamel undercoat to provide a background for the silver.
   Props and spinners were painted Alclad II polished aluminum.
   Decals were home-made, even for the tiny Ratier logos for the prop blades. A model rail-road MV lens was glued at the tip of the nose behind the vac bit. A combination of photoetched circles and punched-out metal foil discs were used to depict inspection lids and fuel tank caps. The canopy framing was done with decal strips and positioned open, not that I think the interior is dashing at any rate, but to add some “let’s go” flavor to it.
   And as we all well know, now after spending all that time and effort on the venerable Airfix Comet a new 1/72 DH 88 kit will be released. Or will it?

Gabriel Stern

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Photos and text © by Gabriel Stern