I have always loved the look and lines of the Westland Lysander so when given the chance, I didn’t hesitate to build the profipack kit from Eduard. To be honest I have the older Gavia boxing in my stash but it doesn’t contain all the little extras that Eduard has added over and above the original boxing of the Gavia kit in 2001. From reading reviews of the Gavia boxing there was small issue in the original tool that involved the location of the alignment holes for the wing strut attachment points. On the recommendation of a friend, I compared the molding of Eduard’s Lysander to the original boxing and Eduard have retooled the lower wing pieces to relocate the alignment holes to the correct position. Go team! The rest of the box o’ parts were top notch and included the great Eduard instruction sheet, color painting guide, decals for five different aircraft, pre-painted photoetch, kabuki masks and of course the polystyrene parts. My review copy did not include the resin bits but no worry, I proceeded on with the build without them. Having many times used Brassin resin from Eduard, I’m sure the parts were nothing short of top notch.

Not surprisingly, construction starts with the cockpit. The cockpit is pretty much a mini-kit itself and looks wonderful when complete. The cockpit assembly contains the necessary support members for the wing assembly. My suggestion is to “take you time” and carefully assemble the cockpit keeping the parts as aligned as possible. You should then be rewarded with a nice honest assembly to help keep the wings aligned and level. Many of the photoetch bits such as the instrument panel and radio parts are used in this assembly. My pro-tip for the day is to leave off the rear machine guns until you are nearly completed with the build.

The cockpit will be sandwiched into the fuselage but I did find it necessary to remove of just a smidge of plastic from either side of the forward cockpit assembly as I could not get the fuselage sides to come together without this small adjustment. With the cockpit sealed up this kit assembles cleanly like any other Eduard offering I have had the pleasure to build. Be aware that you be presented a few options along the way based on which aircraft you choose to build.

My only niggle with this kit was with the cockpit glass. The glass fit I found to be a bit iffy and I really should have spent more time working on this step than what I did. Be aware the the aft sliding glass is molded to fit around the fuselage in the aft positon.

Leaving the wings separate from the fuselage certainly makes the painting process much easier so that is what I did. I used the Mr. Color paints recommended by Eduard and applied the decals straight to the paint without a clear coat. The decals were thin, easy to handle and settled very well with just a bit of softener solution. Again, go team. Kudos to Eduard for the fantastic decals. This is a great little kit and if you enjoy the Lysander as I do I recommend it highly for builders with a little experience under their belts.

I want to thank Eduard for providing this fine kit to the IPMS USA. Lastly I would like to thank the IPMS USA for allowing me build and review the kit.