JeroenPeters

1:32 PBY-5(A) Catalina Marine Luchtvaart Dienst / Royal Netherlands Naval Air Service Limited Run Manufacturer: Dutch Decal Catalogue # 32020 Available from Dutch Decal: www.dutchdecal.nl Let's start this review with our standard lines about Dutch Decal: Celebrating their 25th birthday, Dutch Decal has been around since 1986. It is run by the Dutch graphic designer Luuk Boerman and has been producing decal sheets of aircraft from all Dutch armed forces. Every now and then a foreign nationality slips through. More than 100 sheets have been released to date. Most of them are sold out now but a few much requested sheets will be reprinted in the near future depending on demand. The decal sheets are silkscreen printed and accompanied by English instructions. Dutch Decal sheets come in all scales: 1:72, 1:48 and 1:32. The 1:32 sheets can be identified by the broad black band at the bottom of the packaging. Let´s have a look what we get: Packed in the usual plastic zip lock bag is one sheet of decals, a booklet showing the four versions that can be chosen from and one paper template. More about that later. A close look at the decal sheet itself reveals a very nice register and sharp, crisp detail. The four versions the modeler can choose from are: • Consolidated PBY-5, Y-45, No 321 Squadron Royal Netherlands Naval Air Service, Rose Bay Australia, 1943 • Consolidated PBY-5A, Y-75, No 321 Squadron Royal Netherlands Naval Air Service, 1941 • Consolidated PBY-5, Y-69, No 321 Squadron Royal Netherlands Naval Air Service, Australia, 1942 • Consolidated PBY-5A, K/Y-75, No 321 Squadron Royal Netherlands Naval Air Service, RAAF Ceylon (VIP Transport), Ceylon, 1943 • Consolidated PBY-5A, P-85, No 7 Squadron Royal Netherlands Naval Air Service, Dutch New Guinea, 1947 Needless to say, this sheet is intended for the HPH models Catalina A little intro: During the dutch colonial reign the need for flying boats was evident. The dutch indies cover almost 2 million square KM and consist out of thousands of scattered islands. The dutch navy used several flying boats in their struggle to protect the dutch interests. Two that stand out are the Dornier 24 and the Catalina. Whereas the Do24 was mainly used for transport missions, the Cats also performed missions like: bomb runs, mine dropping and providing air cover for ships. During the war (after the japanese took over the dutch indies) dutch Catalina crews formed two Catalina squadrons with the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm. Only a small number of Catalina planes survived the escape from japanese forces. They performed missions during the rest of the war from Australia and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). So, If you're looking to build a Catalina in more exotic markings, and heavily weathered Pacific Theatre look, this might be it for you. Paper template: A paper template is provided to cut the masks for the huge orange triangles and background for the dutch flags. This will prove much easier than laying these on with decals. Consolidated PBY-5, Y-45 This specific plane has some stories to tell. Entered service in 1940 and performed recon missions from Ambon. In 1942 it was transferred to Soerabaja and performed fleet protection missions. During one of these missions the Y-45 made the headlines by rescuing 79 souls!! You don't believe it? Here's a pic: After escaping in march 1942 from japanese forces the Y-45 struck a reef and was pulled on land by 100 locals. Here it was made-do mended with… cement! After these repairs the Y-45 finally reached the safety of Australia in Freemantle. The rest of the war the Y-45 performed clandestine secret service missions and at the end of the war this plane was the first to drop food over the starving population of Java. Here's a pic of the crest on the nose of the Y-45: Consolidated PBY-5A, Y-75 This particular plane was a little less 'fortunate'. While in service with the 321 squadron hit a reef in 1943 and sunk immediately. The crew managed to get out in time. The plane was however raised and it took a total of 5 months to fully repair it again. A tough job, since the salt water had eaten away at the wiring. After it was restored the Y-75 was transformed to a passenger plane, meant to transport high officials over long distances. The Y-75 was therefor nicknamed 'Skysleeper'. Here's a pic of the Skysleeper. 4th man from the left is A.V.M. Sir Alan Leeds: Consolidated PBY-5, Y-69 After the Pearl Harbour attack the Y-69 was confiscated by the americans and returned to the dutch after the war. I was not able to dig up much more interesting facts about this plane, except some photo's of the Y-69 during repairs. These photo's (www.maritiemdigitaal.nl) show the heavily weathered appearance. Here are some pics of the Y-69: Consolidated PBY-5A, P-85 This plane entered dutch service on 20-11-1942. It survived the war and in 1953 it was re-numbered to P-219. In 1954 it was destroyed in a fire on Biak. The P-85: Conclusion: As we have come to expect from Dutch Decal, the research is well done and the artwork is on the mark. This sheet is available directly from Dutch Decal or the Aviation Mega Store. It's a limited run edition, so If you want it get it while you can. Highly recommended Cees Broere and Jeroen Peters Our sincere thanks to Dutch Decals´Luuk Boerman for providing the review sample used here. Reference used: • http://www.maritiemdigitaal.nl • http://kw.jonker.co/

What a great guy and what a great project this should turn out to be. I love the photo of him taking to the sky in his sunday outfit. Please tell me he will be part of the build too! Cheers, Jeroen

I'm really taking my time with the very delicate resin. Lots of test fitting and aligning. I replaced the cross connections of the baggage carrier and replaced them with 0,25' plastic rod. This way you don't have any joints to clean up. Also getting the PE spokes in. You can see there's a very small gap between the PE and resin wheel, but that's easy to fix with a little zap-a-gap. All very delicate and fiddly stuff, but do-able.

So today I took my little nephew to the Louwman museum in The Hague. This is one of the (if not THE) most beautiful museum in the Netherlands. And I'm not even a car enthusiast. Suddenly I spot a Douglas bike! Took some pics, but unfortunately I was unable to get any closer, or move around it.

Hi Huub! Good to finally see you here! I just love the diorama you posted. Have seen it on several sites. Was it possibly made by the same dio maker as the one who did the Ju87 scrapyard? Cheers, Jeroen

Hi Ulrich, Welkom! Good to see you here and glad you brought your Shinden! She looks great.. Groet, Jeroen

By the way: are you going to get the Barracuda cast Tempest wheels? I believe there's a review coming up? Dave?

Tight stuff cees! Looks like it's almost time to close this baby up! Nice...

hi James, The spokes are PE. Real nice. First progress on the first 7 parts of resin:

James... same thing i always say to Cees. We need a shot with a beer can. Otherwise we don't know how big it is. Other than that... nice start! Lots of potential for extra detail too.

The questionable part is actually: is it civilian?? (But I won't throw in my own windows, as we say..) I never questioned bikes not to be armour subjects, since they have always been present on sites like: http://www.missing-lynx.com/gallery/german/smhzun.htm Anyhoooo.. I snipped some forst resin today. Very very delicate stuff.

Wow! That is one sweet looking Hornet! Lovely detail. Cant wait to see what you'll do to the b25!

Show me the green! (i.e. the money)

Hi George, You're right. Let's have a look at an old person instead. Starting a 1914 Douglas bike, explaining the complicated process step by step. If you don't speak dutch, it will be even more complicated:

I was being serious about my figure painting skills. They are in par with Stephano's....

Hi Dave, nope! no figures. My figure painting skills are quite equal to this: http://www.spamodeler.proboards.com/thread/339/new-project-american-soldier-35

Hi guys and guys, Yesterday I came home to a nice surprise. A big box which revealed miles and miles of bubble wrap until I ended up with a small box. A little resin kit I have been wanting a lot and... got! How cool will this look parked under the wing of a DH9a or next to the Snipe?? Very cool. Indeed. This is no 1/35 Tamiya BMW from 1975. This is something else. Here's a pic of the finished product.... (Figures not included). And here's a link to a very handy page, showing the construction step by step: http://tommyswar.co.uk/2012/07/01/introduction/ Really nice. Bare with me. I'm starting this build real soon. This will be the first 'armour' build I'm doing since years. Cheers,

It just makes me proud of LSM to have a build like this over here. Very nice work.

And how cool are these schemes by Dutch Decal?? A fresh review is in the making...

Nice review Nick. This title ventures into the realms of Sci-Fi but still gives a nice image of what fantasy was capable of back then...

Hi Peter! I Came here to escape your amazing skills! And now.... you're here! Great work! Have been following this build from the get go. Will stop by at Telford again!

Who would have thought that so many years after the war the Catalina still manages to get 'Flak' Amazing review Jim.

1/32 Dewoitine D.520 Short Run Injected Plastic, Photo-etch and Resin Manufacturer: Azur Catalogue # A108 Available directly from www.cmkkits.com What a cool little plane! That's what I thought when I saw this kit was released. Well.. It is cool, but it's not that little. The Azur Dewotine D 520 is not a new kit and has been around for some years now. Over time some special editions have been available. This version is a limited edition with two foreign decal options. A Luftwaffe fighter training aircraft and a Regia Aeronautica D.520. No French decals are provided. What’s in the box? The kit comes packed in a small end opening box. Usually one reads in reviews how this kind of packaging is hated. We don’t see the problem. You can make three cuts in the top of the box and vôila a top opening box. Sometimes the same “issues” are repeated over and over. The clear and thin transparency sprue is sepearately packaged avoiding damage and provides the one piece main canopy only. The parts come in dark grey plastic. Being limited run low pressure injected there is some flash but that is unavoidable with this kind of kit. On our sample some flap parts seem to be irregular formed due to flow problems. A bit of sanding should even these out. The sprue gates are a bit heavy but removing the parts should not be a problem. There are no location pin and sockets. A small photo etch fret is provided care of Eduard and three small bags of resin. The decals cover two versions and are printed by Aviprint. There are three sprues. One for the fuselage, one for the wings and one for the cockpit parts. This last sprue will hardly be used, since most of the parts come in way better detailed resin. Panellines These look very good compared with various drawings. The wing-undersurface for instance on the D.520 looked quite uneven with various overlapping joints. The wings in the kit are perhaps to “clean” in this respect. There is a very distinctive “piano hinge”-detail on the real aircraft undersurfaces. Azur have rendered these as very shallow depressions which gives a nice effect. The engraved lines look good. The fabric surfaces such as ailerons, elevators, rudder and flaps are represented by faint ridges and look nice. No stitching is represented. From experience I can say that this plastic is easy to work with. Not too hard, so it's easy to add your own rivets. Notes regarding the wings The gunports are represented by oval depressions. These should be drilled out for dimensional effect. This goes for the spent casing openings too. The wingtip lights are only shown as engraved lines. For effect these should be replaced by clear plastic and filed/polished to shape. Cockpit The standard issue kit cockpit looks to be reasonably detailed but this is a limited edition. This kit provides more additional detal in cream/yellow resin. These are provided to enhance or replace the kit parts. The parts for the sidewalls for instance are much better detailed than the simple plastic parts. These are also much larger compared to the plastic parts. As this is an inbox review we don’t know if they fit well. A very well detailed pilot figure with backtype parachute is provided. If you want to show off this detail the canopy has to be sawn in three parts. A delicate operation and only one is provided. The resin floor and sidewalls: Resin cockpit details: The 'throne' (with separate cushion): The resin IP (details are provided in photo-etch and film): The Eduard photo etch fret with seat belts, meshes, instrument panel: And the film: The canopy. The detail is sharp and the plastic is clear and flawless, but cutting this part in three parts with a razor saw takes (as stated earlier) guts. If masking the windows is not your thing (god knows it's not mine) you can get a Montex mini mask for the job (SM 32003). Pilot figure As said this kit comes with a highly retailed resin pilot figure in seated position, looking over his left shoulder. The harness is moulded on, so the PE harness won't be used when this chap is in the cockpit. The only down-side to the figure is the highly startled look on his face. Other than that: a nice bonus. Take note: the flight helmet does not look like anything Luftwaffe I have ever seen, so when building the German version, you might want to replace the head. Gunsight The Dewotine used a very distinctive reflector gunsight which looked like a lantern. Azur have provided this in photo etch. The angled glass should be made yourself from thin acetate. It’s this attention to detail that shows the level of research this manufacturer has taken to provide us modellers with a quality product. In this case there is no need for aftermarket parts. Undercarriage The wheelhubs are well detailed and look very close to photographs in the Mushroom book although there seem to be some variations. Photo’s taken from preserved museum airframes can be misleading though. The kit part inner hubs have a star engraved that cannot be found in the references. The undecarriage legs are very simple but so are the real ones. The oleo section looks to be quite long as if in the exteded position but according to photographs this was true for the full size version too. The tailwheelleg looks simplified and skinny. If you look at the reference photo from the Mushroom book you will see some detail that is missing from the kit. What is hard to understand is the omission of Resin wheels. These would have really made this kit complete. Spinner Two spinners are available in the kit. A short pointed version and a longer much blunter version. Check your references which one to use. The instructions don’t give any clue to which version is used in which decal option. Published photo’s show that either version was used by the German and Italian airforces. Exhaust Nicely cast in resin. They do however need a bit of drilling out. Instructions These are printed in A5 format and black & white. The exploded view is used here and there. Read these carefully as they can be confusing at times. Painting instructions are provided with the colours indicated by numbers. Only Gunze Sangyo numbers are referred to. We consider this to be inadequate. Nose The D.520 had a distinctive intake below the spinner. The kit has this in plastic but a photo-etch version is also provided which looks very good and is much superior to the plastic part. The two intakes on the sides are also on the photo etch fret. The oil cooler opening is provided as a resin insert (see second pic below). (Photo from Flickr) Markings As this is a special edition no french variants can be made from this kit. The decals printed by Aviprint are in register. There are relative few decals but surprise, even swastikas are included albeit in two halves. A nice touch, well done Azur. D.520 flown by a German training unit. (photo credit: Flickr.com, Steward Callan) Overall conclusion The whole package looks to be well researched. Some impressive detail parts are provided for the cockpit. The overall level of detail looks to be very good. The only critique we have on this kit is the lack of resin flattened wheels and the one piece canopy. For this limited issue two foreign decal options are provided. So if you want a French vesion some aftermarket decals must be sourced. We give the standard plastic kit a 7 out of ten but the extra resin and photo etch parts really lifts the standard and we give it 8 out of 10. Highly recommended Thanks to Azur for choosing to cover this subject and providing us with the review sample. Cees Broere and Jeroen Peters Reference used: Dewotine D.520 by Bartomiej Belcarz A Mushroom Model Magazine Special (Yellow Series) ISBN 83-89450-09-7 PS For size comparison I placed the Spitfire fuselage alongside:

Hi Cees, Give me a call if you need the zinc chromate colour!

Wow. Very extensive. Nice work!