Czech Master Resin's 1/72 scale
Jet Provost T.3

by Mark Davies

Airfix's 1/48 scale Spitfire Mk,Ia is available online from Squadron.com

1/72 Kits Jet Provost & Strikemaster Kits

The Jet Provost and its Strikemaster derivative were successful and widely exported training and light strike aircraft. They have been catered for in 1/72 by Airfix’s very basic Jet Provost T.3 issued in 1959, and then a really quite good Strikemaster /Jet Provost T.5 kit released in 1974. Matchbox also had a reasonable Strikemaster kit around the same time as Airfix’s (plus they did the Piston-engined Provost).  Protojets kitted a resin Jet Provost T.1 although I’m unsure as to when this was first released.

It was left to CMR to provide an up to date Provost T.3/4 a couple of years ago. I reviewed this kit here on Hyperscale in 2010, so I will skip any description of the unbuilt kit, other than to restate my review’s conclusion that - It was a superbly executed kit with high levels of detail, yet it looks to be a fairly simple build.

Since then Fly Model has announced a new 1/72 Strikemaster, which hopefully will be more accurate than their Whitley, which kept the Frog Kit’s failings and added some of their own.

I assume that they will base their Strikemaster on the Airfix kit, so it should be okay.

I found the build to be much as I expected, with no major challenges and with very good parts fit.  One thing to note however is that the Jet Provost’s canopy has a clear Perspex extension at the rear behind the canopy frame, so make sure you cut to the outline of the extension and not the frame as I nearly did. The canopy is optimised to modelled open to show off the superb interior detail to its fullest. If you opt to model it closed it is best to remove the guide rail that the canopy slides in to ensure a tight closed fit.

There are many tiny PE details and these are rather challenging at times to fit, or were for me at least. It pays to study the very good instructions and plan your build and leave as many of these small items until the very end.
One thing I was sceptical about but ended up really liking was the use of pre-coloured PE by Eduard for the ejection seat harnesses (I normally prefer all-resin detail). It proved easier to use than I expected and I liked the final result.

My build was compromised by the fact that I managed to knock the almost finished model to the floor when it was mounted on a paint-brush up the exhaust nozzle. This snapped a wing off, cracked open the fuselage and broke the canopy off. As is often the case my model was never quite the same following repair and my heart had gone out of the project. And so it is with no false modesty intended that I feel I failed to do justice to this kit, and would encourage readers to follow this link to CMR’s web-site to see just how good it can look when really well finished.

My calamity aside, I recommend this as a superb multi-media kit, just be prepared to deal with some minute pieces of PE (and remember resin kits don’t bounce well).

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Images and Text Copyright © 2012 by Mark Davies
Page Created 13 March, 2012
Last Updated 13 March, 2012

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