I didn’t go to the Salisbury 2017 model show looking for this one or anything else. It was, however, on sale for £5 on a trader’s stand. At last year’s Telford show, I had asked the same trader why he had no vacform kits for sale. He told me there was no demand for them so he did not bother to bring any. He brought several to the Salisbury show including this one, so I just had to buy it (I also bought two others).
The aircraft is a Beriev MBR-2. It first flew in 1931 though this particular variant did not fly until 1935, entering service with the Russian navy in that year. The type was also used as an airliner. This aircraft is not to be confused with an entirely different aircraft named the Be-2.
The kit was clearly of Russian origin. The packaging was cheap and the instructions were on poor quality yellowed paper, written entirely in Russian. I assumed that the kit would be naff and would be a challenge. I looked it up on Scalemates and discovered that it was produced by a company called Garage Kit. When I examined the parts, I was quite impressed. Unlike some vacform kits, this one had rather good surface detail. It had no cast metal parts and no flight deck parts, but that’s not unusual.
The build was fairly straightforward. I did make an elementary error with the engine, but spotted the problem in time, i.e. before the glue had totally set, so was able to correct it.
The transparent parts have to be the thickest I have ever seen on a vacform kit. They looked as if they were made from 30 thou. clear plastic card, if not thicker. They were, however, clear. Cutting them to the right size involved a lot of slow work to ensure that the parts did not crack. They got there in the end.
The kit instructions provided plans for a colour scheme that took my fancy. It was however, one of those occasions when I know that a far better result could have been achieved by using an airbrush. Since I don’t use one, I had to resort to my usual paint brushes. All I can say is that I did what I could.
Overall, it was quite an enjoyable build that taught me something new about Russian flying boats. The aircraft is available as an injection kit, but not for £5.
