The Cessna A-37 Dragonfly, or Super Tweet, is an American light attack aircraft developed from the T-37 Tweet basic trainer in the 1960s and 1970s by Cessna of Wichita, Kansas. The A-37 was introduced during the Vietnam War and remained in peacetime service afterward.
The T-37 Trainer (Tweety Bird) is still in use as is the ejection seat designed by Weber Aircraft. The seat is an early design with a two stage trigger mechanism. This means the pilot would have to raise the ejection grips and then squeeze the triggers that were uncovered. The basic seat design was adapted for other uses such as the NASA Lifting Body experimental aircraft. Info from Wikipedia and the ejectionsite.com
In the bag
Packed in a sealed bag, the two ejection seats are multiple part construction cast in resin. A small set of instructions are included.
Each seat is made up of three parts. Casting is very good in this small scale, with harnesses and the various ejection handles moulded onto the resin.
Each part has a small casting block attached. The ejection seat will need a razor saw to remove the block, with the smaller parts just requiring a sharp knife to remove the casting block/
Construction of the seats is very easy with the rocket motor guide rail, slotting into the back of the seat. A small part is then glued to the top of the rail. Construction takes about five minutes.
Comparing the seats to sprue shots of the Academy and Hasegawa kits seats the resin replacements are a lot better in detail. Both kits do not have any harnesses, and in the case of the older Hasegawa kit the seats are 10 times better than the kits offerings. The Academy kit being a newer tool are better than the Hasegawa seats, but will still benefit from the Pavla seats, as the detail is a lot more refined.
Instructions
The very small instruction seat, has a three stage build sequence printed in the standard black on white line drawings. Stage three of the build is painting the seat. Colours given are generic names, with the seat being mostly black.
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SUMMARY
Highs: Very nice detail. Easy clean up and build.Lows: NoneVerdict: As the T-37 has a large canopy, both the Academy and Hasegawa kits will benefit with adding the resin seats to add detail to the cockpit.
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About Andy Brazier (betheyn) FROM: ENGLAND - SOUTH EAST, UNITED KINGDOM
I started modelling in the 70's with my Dad building Airfix aircraft kits. The memory of my Dad and I building and painting a Avro Lancaster on the kitchen table will always be with me. I then found a friend who enjoyed building models, and between us I think we built the entire range of 1/72 Airfi...
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