Platz

1/72 Pitts Special "Airock 2007 & 2008"

Kit Number: AB-9

Reviewed by  Chris Durden, IPMS# 29474

MSRP: $15.00 Website: www.platz-hobby.com Platz packed a pair of perfectly-painted Pitts precisely perched in a picturesque package. In other words, this kit gives you some serious bang for your buck. Platz has released several re-pops of the venerable LS Pitts Special kit of the Airock aerobatic team depicting different years and paint schemes. This particular edition covers the 2007 & 2008 season. Inside you will find two complete kits, each 23 parts in white plastic, and a large colorful decal sheet depicting both seasons. All parts are free of flash and the molds have held up well considering they were originally run under the LS brand in the 1980s. The star of the show is definitely the decal sheet. It is beautifully printed, completely in register and incredibly detailed. Look closely and you can easily read the print giving the web address for the team. The box has several photographs of the actual aircraft depicted and after looking at them I realized that there were several differences between the pictures and the kit contents. For those keeping score at home: The aircraft has a three-bladed prop but the kit has two-bladed props (but decals for three blades). The tail shows additional bracing above and below that are not included in the kit. The landing gear appears to be reinforced with heavier struts. There also appears to be a different pitot tube set-up for the 2007/08 show version than what is included in the kit. I will leave it to others to determine if these are "fatal flaws". Personally, I just wanted to build it straight from the box and so I got started.

Assembly and parts prep took very little time. The cockpit includes only a seat, stick and no instrument panel. I had built the LS kit previously and put a small one in – I couldn’t tell once I put the canopy on then, so I just skipped it and added some tape belt. I would recommend adding some backing plates to the front cooling intakes and the exhaust opening on the bottom of the cowling. Otherwise you will be left with voids that will allow you to see straight through to the cockpit. There were no real gaps to speak of and what little was there was filled and sanded with gap-filling CA. Do not forget to pre-drill holes for the rigging! After sanding everything down, I built up successive coats of Tamiya fine grain primer for the white base. After achieving an acceptable finish, I sprayed some red over the engine cowling and along the wing leading edges. Even thought he decals are designed to cover these areas I decided to do so in order to avoid touch-ups later. A good gloss coat followed and then it was on to the decals. The success or failure of this particular kit really rests on the decals and I have to say that these were the best kit decals that I have ever used. The prop decals (one piece with leading grey edge, logo and stripes) were the only pieces that did not quite fit as well as I would have liked. Otherwise, they required no more that Microset to draw them down into every nook and cranny; every piece fit well (there was a little trimming needed at the vertical stabilizer) and all it took was patience to end up with an excellent finished product. All was joy and happiness, right? Well, not exactly. In my time-honored tradition of causing one foul-up per model I neglected to match the red as well as I should have – ending up with a dark red cowling and light red decals. Much gnashing of teeth, pulling of hair and mixing of paint ensued. Once I had a match; I masked off the areas using post-it tape (it comes in a roll), primed white and the feathered the new red to match and blend the transition areas. I pulled it off without any overspray or pulling off any decals! After several gloss coats I was ready to attach the top wing and rig the wee little beastie. I never was really satisfied with my gloss finish, which is my modeling "Achilles heel"; but I stopped because many more gloss coats and that little sucker would look like a fossilized fly caught in amber! The upper wing and struts went together with no fuss or alignment issues which is not bad for a 25 + year old kit, huh? For rigging I used pieces of surgical steel wire that I picked up at a model show years ago. Although the wire is easy to bend out of shape and hard to cut, I think it does a nice job of representing the polished wires in this scale. I made a little tarmac base with wood putty and woodland scenic ground cover and the model was complete. This was a very straightforward, enjoyable build and an excellent value for the money. My thanks to Platz for the review sample.