Aviation Usk 1/72 Dornier Do-22

By Matt Bittner

History

The Dornier Do-22 was designed and built to appeal to the needs of small air forces for a strong, multi-use aircraft. This aircraft was a three-seater and powered by a Hispano-Suiza twelve-cylinder engine. It could be equipped with floats, wheels or skis. In addition, the Do-22 could be armed with machine guns in any of three locations: forward, fuselage mounted gun firing through the propeller; a rearward one on the top of the fuselage for the rear observer/gunner; and/or a rearward gun firing from underneath the fuselage to the rear of the plane.

The Kit

The Av Usk kit of the Do-22 consists of 61 injected plastic pieces, 18 resin pieces, and a vacuformed canopy. There will be (since I obtained a pre-release model, it had no decals) decals for six versions; two Finnish - one on floats, the other on wheels; two Yugoslavia - both on floats; and two Greece machines; one on floats, the other on wheels. There are no decals for German machines. The injected pieces are very well done. No flash and the exterior detail are very well done. The resin parts take care of all cockpit pieces and all of the aileron actuators.

The wheels are molded in-situ with the pants but the rudder is separate. The wing is in halves; even so, it is very to scale, since it appears the plane had a thick wing. Construction will be fun, especially when you get to the point of adding the wing to the fuselage, followed by the floats. There is one area that I question, and I think I would change if I were to build this model. The struts coming "out" of the fuselage that meet the struts leading to the wing are to be butt-joined to the fuselage. If I were to build this, I would drill through the fuselage at the place where the "dimples" are molded into the fuselage where the strut goes, and "thread" a single strut (one strut in the fore location and one in the aft location) through the fuselage. The will provide not only a better way to mount the struts/wing/floats, but will also provide some much needed strength. In fact, I would use the brass Strutz! which are now put out by Aeroclub.

Another odd thing, though, is with the accepting holes in the wing for the struts. According to the instructions, it appears they were molded in the wrong location. The instructions tell you to fill the molded in holes and drill new ones, which the locations are provided for via a measurement. Odd that they were molded wrong, but a plus for Av Usk for telling us about them instead of finding it out for ourselves, when it was too late.

Conclusion

This is a neat looking aircraft, one I never knew existed. The fact that it will come with other than German markings makes it "personally" a very nice model. Definitely recommended, and aside from the mounting of the wing, struts and floats, it should be a fun build.