¹⁄32

Tamiya Mossie: A Plastic Wonder?

Most modellers have their Yins and Yangs when it comes to their hobby and my Yang is repetition – having to do the same thing more than once. Now, I concede that what I about to gripe about is kind of like complaining that your steak was too tasty or that you had too much legroom on your flight, but having to build two full Merlin engine assemblies was, for me, a bit of a sigh-inducing task, not least because I wasn’t intending to show both exposed, so the option to just go with one would have been nice.



As with previous 1/32 releases, Tamiya have supplied plates and magnets that are conspicuously concealed within the engine and the covers to allow you to remove them in order to display the stunning power plants they’ve included. Both of them! So unless you fancy just gluing these covers in place and given the realistic cross-sectional thickness of the covers, this might prove tricky not to mention a tad unstable, you have to go double-Merlin.



It goes without saying that, along with the bearers, firewall and undercarriage nacelles that they form part of, you are left with intricate and exquisitely detailed engines that are more than acceptable all by themselves without any additional wiring and plumbing.



It’s worth mentioning that this kit is big. Like really BIG! To make sure the wings and the fuselage mate together as intended, you have a total of 5 screws to aid in this task. Four attach the outer wing surfaces to a cross-member that encompasses the rear of the cockpit and fuel tank/bomb bay and the other, this entire assembly to the fuselage itself. Needless to say, the precision of the engineering means that you will be smiling like the Cheshire Cat when it all locates perfectly and precisely, negating the need for any filler whatsoever.