The Yellow Series from Mushroom Model Publications covers individual aircraft in great detail. This book on the Boulton Paul Defiant is an excellent example. The book starts out with the basic concept of the Defiant as a daytime bomber destroyer. It then covers night fighter operations, followed by air-sea rescue operations, its use as a target tug and other tasks.

Along with, and in addition to the description of the operational history of the Defiant, a great number of photos are included. These show experimental and operational aircraft as well as incredible details of all parts of the aircraft. The majority of the detail photos were taken of the only complete surviving example of the Defiant at the RAF Museum Hendon. The modeler will be very pleased with these detailed color photos.

The Product

My sample arrived in Eduard’s trademark clear poly envelope enclosing a piece of card stock, Eduard’s Knight standing at parade rest at the top right-hand corner. Inside I found one small photo-etch fret, one small textile fret and the instructions.

This set consists of a cockpit tub, seats, instrument panels and glare shield for early and late instrument/radar panels, control stick, rudder pedals, a couple of boxes for the sides of the cockpit, headrests, and ancillary parts for the back deck of the cockpit. This set is designed for the Sword kits, though Pavla makes a set for the Matchbox version of the Skyknight, too. The parts are well cast in a medium grey resin. I found no bubbles or short molds in any of my parts. The instructions are two pages in the typical Pavla format of line drawings with color callouts and occasionally slightly vague locations.