Just looking at it in-box, it seems great. Better than anything before.
I didn't build the Aeroclub kit, because the vacform fuselage just seems too lacking in finesse. The injection-moulded wings are good, but of course the Amory kit has more and finer detail.
I didn't start the Kiwi Resin kit because the wings were so warped, and I didn't trust them to stay straight permanently if I tried to fix them. I had been contemplating using the Aeroclub wings with it, but, you know, there's more to life...
And now we have a proper injection-moulded kit. A few brief observations without cutting anything off the sprues to try for fit:
Dragon Rapides were made to order, with seating arrangements as requested by the airline. In practice this meant that some aircraft had four passenger windows each side, and some had five. Seeing that the air force Dominies were impressed airliners, the same applies there as well. This kit for the UK Railways Airlines is for a four-window aircraft, and no other option is mentioned in the instructions. However, do not fear, there are two extra windows on the clear sprue, and the inside of the fuselage has grooves so that it is possible to accurately cut the extra space for them. Well done Armory.
The other things that varied were the position of the venturis, and the position of the propellor for the generator. Older aircraft had the venturi on the side of the nose; the one currently flying in NZ has them on the strut from the fuselage to the lower wing. So far I haven't been able to find any in this kit anyway. As for the generator, it's easy enough to sand it off and add one to the opposite wing (the propellor is a PE part).
Tony
