I won the kit drawing at my local model club meeting last night and the prize was Revell's Arado 196. The kit looks phenomenal and the reviews are uniformly good, but I'm an armor modeler and this would be my first aircraft. I'd appreciate some thoughts on this as a first aircraft kit. Worth tackling or better to tuck it away until I've gotten a couple more newbie-friendly kits (e.g. Tamiya's P-47D) under my belt?

Hi Mr. Bill

I would suggest that it is better to build the tamiya's P-47 kit first, because, as you said it is an easier kit for someone who builds his first aircraft kit. Keep the great arado kit as a second aircraft kit, because even if it is an awesome kit (hooray Revell ) you will propablly get confused with the struts of the floaters, or masking its complex canopy. That is my opnion. Signature: A fifteen years old aircraft builder


Cheers Nick

Thanks, Nick. I walked through the instructions this morning and that convinced me to put this one off for now. I never would have selected a seaplane if given a choice, but now that I've looked the kit over I really appreciate it as a less common subject. Really, really nice looking kit. My only comment is the instructions are really busy, especially when it comes to building the wings folded vs. extended.