Mikr Mir 1/72 Hunting Provost T.1

The Percival P.56 Provost was a British ab initio trainer that was developed for the Royal Air Force in the 1950s as a replacement for the Percival Prentice. It was a low-wing, monoplane with a fixed, tailwheel undercarriage and had an unusual side-by-side seating arrangement. The Provost has the distinction of being the last piston-engine basic trainer aircraft to be operated by the RAF.

The Provost was later adapted to make use of a turbojet engine, producing the BAC Jet Provost. The type was withdrawn in the 1960s, in favour of its jet-powered successor. The aircraft was exported to Ireland, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Oman, Burma, Iraq, Malaysia, and Sudan. Several are still flying in the UK.

It was nice to see this one released as in the past, the only kit of this aircraft in this scale was the Matchbox version. The Matchbox kit is actually quite nice, however, it is sorely lacking in detail, which is not at all surprising as Matchbox put ease of construction before anything else. From what I've been told, this is actually a rebox of the S&M kit of 2015.

Where this kit excels is in the detail provided for the interior. In addition to seats and sticks, there is a roll-over structure as well as some detail behind the two seats. This kit also provides an engine face so there will be something to see past the prop.

Wings are a single lower section and two upper halves. This kit can be equipped with guns in the wings and rockets under the wings. There is a single piece horizontal stab that fits atop the rear fuselage and a separate rudder. Landing gear are well done and include the landing lights. Not surprising is that a few bits need to be produced by the builder, such as the adf sense antenna and there are a fair number of small parts. The cockpit canopy is made of three sections that will require some careful assembly to look nice. Mikr Mir does provide canopy masks, which is much appreciated and while there are no placement instructions for the mask, those 'experienced modelers' should have no issue figuring out what goes where.

Instructions are three folded sheets nestled within each other. One of those sheets contains the 14 construction steps. No color information is provided during this process, though again, the target audience should have no issue figuring out the proper shades. This is the 'foreign' boxing and provides six options for five nations. The two Omani planes are in dark grey/dark green uppers with silver undersides. The Sudanese option is overall silver with brunswick green upper wings and day-glo section on the nose, fuselage band, and flying surface extremities. Other options in overall silver with black nose anti-glare panels are from Iraq, Malaysia, and Burma. The fairly large decal sheet is nicely printed and fairly matte.

Apparently this boxing was a bit of an afterthought as the box cover is just a sticker over the RAF boxing. However, it is nice to have a newer tool kit of this aircraft and should look nice once finished. For those who also have the older Matchbox kit, whatever markings are not used with this build will be useful for that other kit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percival_Provost

July 2024

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