This is a re-box kit and update with new parts of the Eduard release from 1998. It represents the famous Bell Aircraft Corporation’s X-1 X-plane that first took man past the sound barrier on October 14th 1947 piloted by Capt. Charles E “Chuck” Yeager.

In the box is:

• 2 x light grey sprues
• 1 clear canopy
• 1 decal sheet
• 1 mask sheet
• 1 photoetch detail set
• 3 x resin wheels
• 1 instruction booklet

All the sprues are extremely well molded with very little flash and great detail; the decals allow you to finish the aircraft in 4 different versions.

Construction

First is the construction of the cockpit which is well detailed, and the photoetch helps a lot to make this a very impressive cockpit when complete.

Once the main cockpit is finished it’s time to join the fuselage halves. Here you need to ensure you add enough weight directly behind the cockpit to ensure the X-1 sits correctly on the nose wheel. I added 1/2 an ounce and that worked well. Now before joining the fuselage halves I recommend you install the instrument panel. The instructions suggest doing this later, as I did, and found to my dismay the fuselage cracked while pushing it in place. Also please note that you need to join the fuselage carefully as there are no location pins to assist you.

I also found a gap was left between the cockpit floor and the fuselage that needed filling.

When installing the wings you also need to clear the attachment holes a little and sand the surface to ensure the wings sit flush.

Now I masked the canopy and wheels using the very handy masking set. I will point out you need to support the canopy well when applying the masks as I managed to crack it just pushing the masks down!

One little thing I would have suggested as an addition to the kit is some detail parts at the forward face of the instrument panel as this is visible when complete and looks very empty.

I selected to finish the X-1 as the A scheme, the orange paint work was hard to get right and took a couple of goes to get looking good. I also found a small error with the decals where decal 23 is shown in two locations and I did not realize this mistake until I had added decal 23 in the wrong location where in fact a decal 16 should have been located.

Summary

This was a great kit and really fun to build. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to do the X-1!

Thanks go to Eduard for providing this kit to review and IPMS USA for allowing me to review it for them.