Azur 1/32 Rata
By Gino Dykstra
Although this is a fairly straight build, here are some tips to watch for:
The interior is a VERY tight fit. I found that I not only had to trim the control panel down quite a bit, but also the floorboard a bit to permit the fuselage to fit between the wings. In addition the fuselage front needs to be trimmed a bit to permit the engine face to sit flush. The Williams Bros. nine cylinder engine was virtually a press fit, so trimming out the engine vanes was well worth the effort.
Possibly the most ill-fitting parts were the stabilizers, so be prepared to do some shaping of the fairings to blend it all together. However, with the soft plastic this is a relatively easy job. There’s also the potential for a step where the underwing mates with the fuselage.
The kit supplies an almost ridiculously delicate resin and photoetch gun sight – absolutely to scale and very nicely done. Unfortunately, I discovered how tight a fit the thing must have been on the real aircraft. Because of the thickness of the clear canopy (which is very clear and thin notwithstanding) my gunsight simply wouldn’t fit as built. You may notice that it’s reversed on my model – it was the only way I could figure out to fit it in. On my next one, I may shave down the base considerably and see if that makes a difference.
The decals are very nice and laid down with no silvering whatsoever. I just wish they’d included a broader range of markings. Still, they look very nice as is.
All in all, a very nice, straight-forward model of a very straight-forward aircraft. My last picture shows it standing next to another not-so-big aircraft, Trumpeter’s Mig 3 for size comparison. Now I’m hoping they do as they did with the Dewoitine and come out with a “exclusive” version with Russian markings and perhaps skis? That would be something!
© Gino Dykstra 2005
This article was published on Wednesday, July 20 2011; Last modified on Saturday, May 14 2016