Amodel 1/72 DH-104 Dove

The de Havilland DH.104 Dove was a British short-haul airliner developed and manufactured by de Havilland. It was a monoplane successor to the prewar de Havilland Dragon Rapide biplane. The design came about from the Brabazon Committee report which, amongst other aircraft types, called for a British-designed short-haul feeder for airlines.

The Dove was a popular aircraft and is considered to be one of Britain's most successful postwar civil designs, in excess of 500 aircraft being manufactured between 1946 and 1967. The type saw considerable success in the role for which it was envisioned, operating with small feeder airlines from small or unprepared landing strips.

A longer four-engined development of the Dove, intended for use in the less developed areas of the world, was the de Havilland Heron. A considerably re-designed three-engined variant of the Dove was built in Australia as the de Havilland Australia DHA-3 Drover.

In excess of 50 Doves were sold to various operators in the United States by Jack Riley, an overseas distributor for the type. De Havilland later assumed direct control of U.S. sales, however did not manage to match this early commercial success for the type.

This is one of those kit buys that was inspired by a decal sheet. Though Airfix does a nice Heron in 1/72 scale, no one did a Dove/Devon. Amodel has now come to the rescue and this is their Devon boxing.

The instructions start in the cockpit and the amount of detail is adequate for this scale. Somewhat generic seats and no belts, but one does wonder how much will be seen through the transparency. The nose gear well has to be built up from four parts and the engine nacelles are also four pieces. There is no allowance made for the props to spin so you'll have to devise something from tubing or the such for that.

Before installing anything into the fuselage halves, the cabin windows are installed. The instructions show these being attached from the outside. I'd do a test fit to see if these could be left off until after painting. Conversely, you can prepaint the areas around the windows. With that done, the nose gear is attached to the nose well and that along with the cockpit is installed. There is no indication of any weight, but I'd put in as much as you can fit as bet it needs some.

With that done, the tailplanes are attached followed by the wing. There is a single lower piece and two upper halves. The wing will need filler. You see, in order to cast such a large piece, the sprue attachment stub had to be large and is in the middle of the wing. Removing this stub leaves a large hole in the lower wing so break out the card/filler and prepare yourself for some dedicated filling. I'd use a two part filler or super glue as that much one-part filler will shrink with time. With that on, the cockpit transparency is glued on. You are provided with two. For these markings options you use the one with the side windows.

The next couple of steps have you install the engine nacelles along with the various landing gear legs, wheels and doors. You'll notice rather quickly that the wheel wells are too shallow to actually hold the wheels, but, if you want to model this gear up, simply use one half of the wheels and perhaps sand down the gear leg. Then you attach the props and determine if your option has the radio feed in the upper cockpit transparency.

But wait, this kit comes with photo etch. What about that. Well, there is another sheet included that replaces the final construction step. This includes external stuff like windscreen wipers, static dischargers, a variety of antennas and a mounting plate for the roof antenna. The construction step tells you which bits to use for which marking option.

Speaking of which, you get four in this kit. Well, there are only two liveries with Martin's Air Charter (which became Martinair) having options for three planes. Two of those three are the same registration but with different names above the windows. The fourth option is with Transportes Aereos de Timor. All four options are in bare metal with white upper fuselage/tail. The TAM plane has the large red cheat line. Decals are quite matte and in perfect register. There are aftermarket sheets available for this kit if you don't like the kit options.

It has been pretty obvious over the years that the 'big boys' were not going to produce a kit of this plane and I've very pleased that Amodel has stepped up. There has been a resin kit done, but this one should be more widely accepted by modelers. I anticipate this taking a bit of time and effort to complete, but I'm also sure that it will make a very nice model for the shelves.

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

November 2018

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