From the Manufacturer’s Website:

To fulfill Specification O.35/35, calling for a two seat carrier borne fighter, the Air Ministry ordered this type of aircraft from Blackburn Aircraft Ltd. in 1935. Similar to the land based Defiant fighter, the new fighter’s armament was to be concentrated within a manned turret. The Blackburn’s chief designer G.E.Petty delivered the so-called B.25 design that was closely linked to the previous B.24 design also known as the Skua Mk.II. The design was that of an all-metal low wing monoplane with folding wings and retractable undercarriage. The fuselage was taken from the Skua including the Perseus XII engine. The only modification was the widening of the fuselage behind the pilot’s cockpit to accomodate the revolving Boulton Paul Mk.II turret equipped with four machine guns. Production of 136 aircraft was ordered on 28 April 1937, long before the first flight of the prototype. The first prototype took off on 23 December 1938. The prototype was tested without the turret fitted which was mounted on the following prototype L3058. Due to Blackburn’s Skua commitment, and preparing for production of the Botha bomber, production of the Roc was handed over to Boulton Paul which built 133 production aircraft designated the Roc Mk.I. The first aircraft was produced at the beginning of 1939 and from April, the aircraft were being delivered to No.800 and No.803 squadrons of the FAA. Later on, No. 801 and No. 806 squadrons were re-equipped with Rocs as well. Nevertheless, none of the above mentioned squadrons were equipped exclusively with the Roc, which always only supplemented the more capable Skua Mk.II type. Some Rocs were delivered, but even before the outbreak of the war they were modified and transferred to training and target towing units. Their performance was unsatisfactory due to the machine gun turret, the Roc was 300kg heavier than the already underpowered Skua. When the war broke out, three Rocs attached to both No. 801 and No. 803 squadrons saw service aboard Ark Royal and later flew from Hatson airbase in the Orkneys. Later on, in 1940, No.801 and No.806 squadron Rocs were deployed over Western Europe. Only one success and operational loss occured during this period. A Roc, serial numbered L3065, together with two Skuas probably shot down a Ju 88. In June 1940, the Roc began to be withdrawn from combat units and transferred to second line, training and target towing units. Because Stalin’s Soviet Union attacked Finland, it was decided in 1940 to sell 30 aircraft toFinland in accordance with a policy of extending help to that country. The aircraft received Finnish national insignia and serial numbers in preparation for delivery. They hadn’t been delivered by the end of the Winter War, and later there was no further interest in the type. Evidence indicates that these aircraft flew in Finnish colours in Great Britain only with the Finnish insignia obscured.

The Kit

The Blackburn Roc Mk. I kit includes three sprues of grey styrene, one clear plastic sprue, a set of resin parts for the engine and several other small components. There is also a photo-etched set included (seatbelts, landing gear parts, engine details, dashboard, and some other small parts.) The instruction sheet has 12 pages, of which the first seven are dedicated to the history of the Roc and the assembly. Four pages have four painting schemes with side, top, and bottom views of different airplanes and their brief history. Three of the four planes have British markings and the last one has Finnish markings. There is also a link to the instructions: SH72141 Bl Roc návod 2025.pdf on Special Hobby website.

Construction

The construction starts with the cockpit and the details inside are quite nice. There are two fuel tanks behind the pilot’s seat. Unfortunately, there are no locating points where to mount them on the cockpit’s floor. The instructions show them close together and that is how I positioned them. However, I found a picture of the Skua’s interior which shows space between the two tanks. The two fuel caps to be mounted on the tanks (part C14) were molded offset and I chose to replace them with a plastic rod of similar diameter instead. The cockpit’s interior is well represented, including photo-etched parts and small plastic details. I had a bit of trouble installing the control panel and two small parts under it (parts C26 and L7-8). The instrument panel has a nice photo-etched part for it supplemented by a clear film with imprinted instrument dials. The entire cockpit subassembly then fits inside the fuselage sides. I dry-fit these parts several times to make sure the alignment was there. However, before the fuselage halves were glued, the small rear firing turret had to be assembled. In my sample, as mall part A3 was broken and I replaced it with a scratch built similar part. It is barely visible inside the turret. I also drilled out the ends of the machine gun barrels. I did not install the turret as instructed because I wanted to avoid masking the turret for the painting stage. I inserted the assembled turret at the very end of the entire assembly and painting. The turret’s clear parts consist of two halves and I had to fill in tiny gaps on both sides after they were glued together. I hand painted the turret’s frame as it was difficult to mask these parts.

The landing gear wheel wells are provided as separate parts and they are marked with the left and right orientation. They were sitting a bit high after the installation so I had to file them down a bit to adjust their height a bit to allow for the wing halves to be glued together without interference. I also installed the wings (step 7a/7b) after the steps 8 and 9. The reason for that was a small improvement to the engine/propeller configuration. The kit has a nice resin engine. Nevertheless, without a modification, the propeller would have to be permanently glued to it. I like my propellers spinning so I drilled a hole through the engine’s center and substituted the part C31 with a much longer metal shaft that enabled the propeller’ rotation when it was threaded through the hole in the center of the engine. The engine assembly also required a use of resin pipes that would connect to the cowling. Superglue was needed to complete this part. The small curved resin pipes had a pointy end and the engine cylinders had a small indent to receive them. This helped a lot during gluing of these parts (PUR8) as there were 18 of them. The provided resin parts for the two tubes shown in the instructions as part PUR2 in step 8 were substantially different (they looked like two bent at the end small exhaust pipes) so I used two pieces of copper pipe instead. They were also too wide to fit between the engine cylinders. You can see the replaced copper tubing in one of the engine pictures. Otherwise, the resin engine and a photo-etched triangular frame make the engine look quite attractive. After the engine with its propeller was attached to the fuselage, I glued the wings in place, as well as the horizontal stabilizer. I like to install these components in such an order to ensure a symmetrical horizontal alignment of both components. One of the paint schemes (A) requires cutting the canopy. I chose the paint scheme B that skips this step. There are no masking components for the canopy so I masked it by cutting small pieces of the Kabuki tape. It was a bit tricky because rear windows have an oval shape. The last clear part was for the wing’s reflector. There is a tiny clear piece that represents a light bulb. Unfortunately, it was barely visible inside as my clear reflector cover was not very clear and had some flash. After trimming it and gluing it in place, I masked it for later painting. It should also be mentioned that we get two clear parts for the wing reflectors because the Skua used two of them. The plastic wing parts for the Roc have cutouts for the reflector in the left wing only, although the painting instructions still show two of them. I think this is because the Roc was based on the Skua’s design and many parts were identical or very similar. That is probably why we get the photo-etched set with the name Skua on it in this kit.

The landing arrestor hook assembly required a use of part C3 in step 10 and a resin piece PUR6 for the hook. However, the part C3 was so poorly molded that I replaced it with two plastic rods from Plastruct. After installing part C9 with the resin hook, I had to use tiny bit of putty at its two ends. The engine exhaust resin part, on the other hand, is a beautifully shaped piece that fits to the engine cowling perfectly in this assembly step.

I installed the main landing gear in step 11, adding photo-etched parts to the gears. I painted and attached the nicely cast resin landing wheels after the whole model was painted. The last two assembly steps (12 and 13) were for the Pitot tube, the antennae mast, photo-etched step (L16), and the propeller assembly. As mentioned earlier, I installed the propeller when I attached the engine to the fuselage in steps 8-9. The antenna wire was also added after the whole model was painted.

Painting

I primed the assembled model with Tamiya gray primer. The camouflage options offer four painting schemes: a bare metal one and three with camouflage. The fourth airplane represents a Finnish camouflage scheme with its national insignias from WWII. I chose the second paint scheme for the airplane that saw brief action during the war. The instructions provide paint colors for Gunze Sangyo. I did not have these specific colors and used AMMO Atom and Hataka paints. I painted the undersides first. This step required an earlier paint scheme shades of white and black, as well as the sky grey color. The vertical stabilizer was also painted with the Sky grey color. The next step required masking of the stabilizers, the fuselage sides, and wings’ leading edges before the dark slate grey and extra dark sea grey colors were applied. I painted the camouflage colors on the wings free-hand. A gloss coat was applied to the entire kit with an acrylic varnish, followed by the application of the decals. The decals had a bit of the carrier film around them so I trimmed them around as much as possible. The decals conformed well to the surface and reacted positively to the Super Set and Super Sol decal solutions. I applied AK Interactive black panel liner before spraying the model with a dull coat from AMMO.

Summary

I was intrigued by this lesser known airplane from WWII. Despite the use of some substitute components described above during the construction, the kit builds into a very nice representation of this unique aircraft. The overall symmetry of wings and stabilizers is correct after the assembly. The molded details on the plastic surfaces, the resin engine and other parts with the photo-etched components add a lot of value to the entire build. This is not a greatly complicated built in 1/72 scale and the modest number of parts should attract modelers. Because of the mixed mediums used in the kit involving plastic, resin, and photo-etched parts, I would recommend this kit to at least medium-experienced modelers. The final result is well worth the effort. I am looking forward to seeing and building more unique Special Hobby kits.

My sincere thanks go to Special Hobby for generously providing this kit to review and IPMS/USA for allowing me to review it.