Azur FRROM 1/72 Fairey Battle 'AASF'

The Fairey Battle is a British single-engine light bomber that was designed and manufactured by the Fairey Aviation Company. It was developed during the mid-1930s for the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a monoplane successor to the Hawker Hart and Hind biplanes. The Battle was powered by the same high-performance Rolls-Royce Merlin piston engine that powered various contemporary British fighters such as the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire. As the Battle, with its three-man crew and bomb load, was much heavier than the fighters, it was therefore much slower. Though a great improvement over the aircraft that preceded it, its relatively slow speed, limited range and inadequate defensive armament of only two .303 (7.7 mm) machine guns left it highly vulnerable to enemy fighters and anti-aircraft fire.

The Fairey Battle was used on operations early in the Second World War. During the "Phoney War" the type achieved the distinction of scoring the first aerial victory of an RAF aircraft in the conflict. In May 1940, the Battles of the Advanced Air Striking Force suffered many losses, frequently in excess of 50 per cent of aircraft sorties per mission. By the end of 1940 the type had been withdrawn from front-line service and relegated to training units overseas. As an aircraft that had been considered to hold great promise in the pre-war era, the Battle proved to be one of the most disappointing aircraft in RAF service.

Those of us who have been in the hobby for a while will know that this is not the only 1/72 Battle to be released. The first was by Airfix and was issued in 1968 with the most recent re-issue in 2010. Later, in 2000, MPM added it to their short run offerings. This is a brand new tooling released just in time for the holidays.

You'd expect this one to be the best of the lot and from the look of what's in the box it is. There are quite a few small pieces for the cockpit side walls and you are provided with a full cockpit and gunner's position. A neat feature is that the rear gun can be modeled in the open or stowed position. There are a lot of small subassemblies that will need to be properly placed in a fuselage half before closing it.

Depending on the version you are building, there are different exhaust and exhaust mounting inserts to be used. Note that the way the kit is designed, you will need to install all the landing gear when you close up the fuselage and the wings. This will enhance the opportunity to break them, this is especially true of the tail gear which is quite scale. Before closing up the wings, there is a center section to be attached to the lower wings and the landing light housings will need to be built up. The landing light covers include a small section of wing leading edge on either side so will have to be installed prior to painting.

The rest of the main gear is somewhat complex so it is wise to double check the initial building to ensure that all fits without issue. The lower cowling is a separate piece as this is different on some of the different boxings. Elevators and rudder are separate which is nice as perhaps they can be posed in something other than the neutral position. Ailerons and flaps are molded in place. The greenhouse has a separate canopy and gunner's section. Not sure if the canopy can be displayed open, but you can do that for the rear gunner. The last steps are installing the main gear wheels, mud guards, and gear doors.

Instructions are well done and use color. Some of the steps are a bit vague, but you can figure things out by checking later construction steps. Markings are for three planes. The box art plane is in dark green, dark earth and black from 226 Squadron in May 1940. Next is an Australian version with the Air Gunnery School in dark earth, foliage green, and sky blue in 1942-44. Finally, a South African aircraft with 11 Squadron SAAF in Ethiopia during April 1941. Decals are nicely done and should work just fine.  

Azur/FRROM has released three boxings of this kit, with some parts differences and different decals. Basically, you pick the markings you like and go from there. I wanted to do the SAAF version so chose this boxing. Based on other new tool kits from Azur/FRROM, I expect it to generally go together well, though I do expect to have to work a bit to get all to fit just right. It is the nature of the beast. These are well detailed kits, but they aren't Tamiya, so for that reason, I would expect these to not be a good choice for a beginner. Everyone else, and that would include those of you reading this now, should have no real issues. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Battle

December 2024