Voisin 3

The Flashback kit in 1:72. This took the best part of 6 months to complete - including a house move in the middle and a number of 'I'll just put this to one side for a day or two..' moments.

There are so many small resin and brass pieces to this kit that it looked like it would never get built.

However, I finally completed it in August of 1999 and it looks OK.

This is not a kit to be taken lightly. I'm disappointed that a lot of the lovely detail on
the etched brass bits is lost under the paintwork - I'm a confirmed brush painter and
that white colouring takes a lot of coats to achieve a good density. White also
tends to highlight each and every scratch and scuff mark.

It's worth noting that the 'plane is a tail-sitter though. I put as much lead in the nose as I dared, but still it refuses to sit on all 4 wheels. Photo's of Voisin aircraft in Janes show that some marques did sit on only the rear wheels and the tailskid, so maybe it was just down to the loading of the aircraft.

One further tip: the port and starboard horizontal tailplanes are connected with
a thin piece of plastic. The elastic rigging on mine caused the tailplane to bend
down on the right. It would be best to separate the two sides and rejoin with
metal wire inserted into grooves or drilled holes to prevent this.

The rigging was done entirely with elastic thread, and each time I look at the model, I find more wires that I must have missed off, yet it still looks too 'busy.' The aircraft reminds me very much of the micro-light planes that fly out of a local airfield.