de Havilland Comet
Advanced Kit

Clear Prop!, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Graham Carter

The de Havilland (note the lower-case ‘de’) 88 Comet was built specifically to win the England to Australia (London-Melbourne) MacRobertson Air Race in 1934. Three were constructed for private entrants in the race, a couple more were completed afterwards for use and testing, one by the RAF.

The subject of this kit , G-ACSS, won the race and still exists in flying state at Old Warden in England at the Shuttleworth Collection. Having been able to wander around it a couple of times I can vouch for the beauty of the original and the quality of its rebuild.

The aircraft is a master class in aerodynamics and the use of small engines in achieving range and speed but it was a bit of a dead-end commercially with the second and third placed competitors being the next step in aviation as all metal planes. However its claim to fame cannot be denied and it did assist the company in its development of the wonderful Mosquito fighter/bomber a few years later.

It looks like an awful lot of Airfix kits will appear on the second-hand market with the release of this kit!

The KP Comet released a couple of years ago was a fine kit but I feel that this Clear Prop issue has the edge in detail.

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I will review all three items together as they complement each other.

The kit itself comes in a colourfully illustrated top-opening box, inside which is a strong plain box containing the parts, instructions and accessories. Inside a sealed clear sleeve there are three sprues of light grey plastic, all very well moulded with no sign of short moulding but a little bit of flash on a couple of small parts such as rudder balance and undercarriage legs that will need to be carefully removed.

Sprue gates are commendably narrow but again, owing to the finesse of some parts, will need care in removal and clean up. this will especially apply to undercarriage components and the wing leading edges.

A seperate bag holds a fine canopy and nose light.

Surface detail is beautiful, subtly suiting a smooth airframe designed for racing.

Interior details for the cockpit are a combination of plastic and photo-etched parts and will look just great when all in place, crying out for the canopy to be propped open.

The undercarriages and their bays are also well-represented.

Instructions and Markings

The instructions come in an A5 folded colour booklet with the colour notes for each stage being indicated by a letter code linked to a table on the front page. However, DO NOT follow the colour notes in step 13 else you will end up with a most peculiar model! The notes ask you to paint the tyres red, a slip of the keyboard I suspect.  

The colour/decal placement sheet for the kit comes as a seperate sheet. leading me to think that further colour/decal choices will follow.

Three British racers, French racers, French Postale and the RAF markings should lead to a very colourful collection in the future one hopes. The decals themselves are excellent with good colour and a variety of little details such as propeller marks and  instrument panels. The backing paper is a little pale so take care identifying and cutting out the white markings. A non-coloured PE fret gives a mass of cockpit details - levers, instrument panels that fit over the decals for the dials, compass dials, wheels, seatbelts and other doo-dads. 

Accessories (available separately)

In addition Clear Prop have released two accessory packs for this kit as numbered above

1. A set of masks in the familiar zip-lock bag and in the yellow Kabuki-style material. The masks provide for the external cockpit panels and the wheel centres and should help to relieve the pressure associated with painting these troublesome areas.

1. a wonderful 3D printed Gipsy engine which cries out to be used. It will require some surgery on the nose of one of the nacelles but comes with the engine bearers that will attach to the front plate of the nacelle once cut. The engine print itself is just glorious with a mass of fine detail on show , all embellished by fine PE parts for even wiring and tubing details. Careful painting should produce a fabulous replica. Now we need some resin nacelles panels to set it all off!!

Both of the sets will add to the original kit and come highly recommended

All-in-all this is a great little kit and should more than satisfy the modeller with an interest in racers or aviation history-makers and comes highly recommended.

Thanks to Clear Prop! for the sample

Text Copyright © 2024 by Graham Carter
Images Copyright © 2024 by Brett Green
Page Created 20 August, 2023
Last updated 22 August, 2024

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