What’s Inside

You get 1 large fret and a 5-page instruction sheet. The instructions take you in order from the front of the aircraft to the back. Starting with the oil cooler intake, supercharger intake, bomb rack fittings and, if you use it, the flame dampener. Next up are the underwing radiators, and there is some minor surgery required. Be careful not to take too much off, but also make sure you take enough off or the pieces will not fit right (It really is a fine line and one that I crossed on one section). There are 5 pieces for the forward part and 3 for the rear and it is VERY delicate. Of the 8 folds I had to make, 6 of them broke off. I recommend that the screens be placed on before adding the flaps. Trust me, it will be easier.

Moving on to the wings, there are many pieces to add here, starting with 20+ inspection hatches…UGH! You are also provided fuel filler hatches and the fuel tank booster pump maintenance hatches. The wing walks are nice but are the wrong style for the D-5 (at least, in all the pictures I’ve seen, anyway) and I will replace these with the kit-supplied ones which are the correct type.

The last two areas covered are the tail and the bombs. There are 14 more inspection hatches for the horizontal stabilizers. The nice touches are the elevator trim control cables, rudder control cables, and rudder trim control cables. For the bombs, only the AB 250 light weapons dispenser gets PE fins. The little SC50 bombs could have used some also, though.

Conclusion

This is a nice set that adds a little detail to the exterior, but not so much that I would say you have to get it to make the model look nice. Many of the details are not really needed, and some you could easily scratchbuild. That choice will be up to the individual modeler. Due to the many small and hard-to-manipulate pieces in this set, I recommend only modelers with a lot of experience with photo etch use this set.

I would like to thank Eduard for supplying this set and the IPMS-USA review corps for letting me work on this review.