Eduard

1/72 Canberra PR.9 Self Adhesive Detail set For the Airfix Kit

Stock Number: 73 352

Reviewed By  Jim Pearsall, IPMS# 2209

MSRP: $29.95 Website: www.eduard.cz Catalog entry: www.eduard.cz/products/card.php?id_product=6549&name=Canberra&catalogue_nb=&type=&pgroup=&scale=&product_month=&product_year=&page_start=25 I spent some time in Italy in the mid-1990s at the 5th Allied Tactical Air Force Combined Air Operations Center. It happened that we received frequent photo reconnaissance product from the RAF. These images were taken by a Canberra PR.9, and I've had affection for this aircraft ever since. When Airfix came out with their Canberra PR.9, I bought one as soon as it was available at the LHS. When I was offered the opportunity to really apply detail to the kit with the Eduard PE set, I grabbed the chance. My other acquaintance with a Photo-Recon Canberra was a guided tour of an ANG RB-57A at Alpena, Michigan in 1967. Sure wish I'd had a camera. Sure glad I didn't, as they'd have taken it away from me and probably put me in the clink. The Kit Eduard sends you a ten-page instruction book and two large frets of photoetch. One of the PE frets is colored, the other is just metal. The colored fret is self-adhesive, but either I did something wrong, or I missed something, because all the parts on the lower part of that fret didn't stick to anything. The ones on the upper part, which include the cockpit parts for the pilot stuck wonderfully. This was not a problem, as I used Gator Glue on all of the non-sticky parts, and they stuck too. The other fret is parts for detailing the exterior, and since they will be painted the exterior color, what's the use of pre-coloring them? Cockpit Assembly The detail for both seats and the pilot's cockpit are great. You have to remove the Airfix belts and seat arms and install the Eduard parts, and since this is small scale, some of the parts are just miniscule. After the seats are completed, you have to "rearrange" the interior of the cockpit area. This involves cutting up the Airfix cockpit and gluing it back together with an overlap on the floor. It works.

The cockpits looked great!. It wasn't until I was looking at Chris Durden's review of a 1/48 Canberra PR.9 cockpit set that I really thought something was wrong. I did a Google image search for Canberra PR.9s, and came up with a photograph which proved that the Navigator's seat goes up in the nose, right where the nose opens. I didn't catch this because I remembered the nav seat in the RB-57A was where it's shown in the photo above, and he had to crawl up to the nose to do the recce photos. It would have been really bad luck to be there if he needed the bang seat. Of course I discovered the placement error long after the fuselage was assembled, puttied and painted. Fortunately I was able to reach in with a thin tool and pop the seat loose, then glue it in the correct spot. I am not happy with Airfix, but Eduard didn't make any mention of the correct placement either. Exterior Details The most visible exterior details in this set are on the underside of the aircraft. The two large areas just behind the wheel wells are PE, as well as the twelve square black spots, six on each wing, just outboard of the engines. There are also fixes for the wheel wells and the nose gear doors. The nose doors as they come are plain inside, and the PE with rivet detail adds a lot to them. There are some additions and fixes where I'm not sure it's worth the time and effort. These are the main gear wheels on my Canberra. One of them has the original kit hub center. The other has had the center nub removed and it is replaced with a PE tie-down ring. Since I could get 6 of these rings on the head of a pin, I'm not sure anyone will be able to see it. But we know it's there, don't we? And that's what matters.

Overall Evaluation Recommended. The improved interior is far superior to Airfix's. The addition of the detail in the Navigator's position and the addition of the capability to open the nose are also really superior detail. One problem I had as this project progressed is that I was working back and forth between the Airfix instructions for the basic aircraft and the Eduard instructions for the corrections and add-ons. There's no relation between Eduard's procedure and Airfix's. I finally had to annotate both sets of instructions with step numbers from the other instruction to insure I didn't miss a step. If you want to do a parked Canberra PR.9 with the canopy open, it'd also be necessary to open the nose. Also, you're going to need a boarding ladder, as the PR.9 has no access to the cockpit except through the canopy opening. This last bit of information and the photo are courtesy of Paul Bradley. Thanks to Eduard for this really great detail set. Also thanks to John Noack, who was patient with me, as this project followed Hofstader's corollary to Murphy's law exactly. "The first 90% of a project requires 90% of the time allotted. The other 10% also requires 90% of the time allotted."