Ardpol 1/72 Pomilio PE By Grzegorz Mazurowski

History

According to Alberto Casirati's article in Windsock, Italian Pomilio PE two-seaters were: " . . certainly the best of the series, began equipping front line units in summer 1918. Powered by the Fiat A 12-bis of 300-hp, they had better flying qualities and having a top speed of about 200 km/h, they were fast enough to operate without escort." The airplane looks very strong and modern, but, on the other hand, it is amazing that such modern plane has these cool looking scalloped trailing edges of the control surfaces - a rather archaic feature, resembling Etrich Taube pioneer aircraft..

The kit

It's getting boring. Each next Ardpol kit is similar- almost perfect. If you read IM regularly, you probably already know very well that Ardpol kits are one of the best resin kits available on the market (in my opinion), and you know what to expect in the characteristic yellow box with the wide dark blue stripe and the cool colour profile of the airplane, painted by talented Zygmunt Szeremeta.

You probably know, that Ardpol kits are perfectly moulded in the light tan resin, and all the parts are packed in a few small zip-bags. Wings are taped to the piece of a cardboard in order to keep them straight. There is also a small photo etched fret, piece of clear plastic with the detailed instrument faces printed in black, sheet of very good decals and the 8 page instruction booklet with the short description of the airplane history and the technical data, detailed, step-by-step assembly instruction, four-view scale drawings of the airplane and the painting scheme.

Resin parts are very finely detailed and the accuracy is very good. I found only one mistake of the kit designers: the tailskid in the original airplane is supported by the 'pyramid' made of four tubes coming from the fuselage sides to the bottom edge of the lower fin, and in the kit these tubes are barely marked as a recessed lines on the fin. There is also nice addition of one extra Fiat MG - the original airplane had two of them and the kit (only mine example or all of them?) has three.

Fine PE fret done by the renowned Part contains two seats which have to be folded, seatbelts, instrument panel, radiator face, windscreens, control horns and some other small parts. PE control panel is backed with the instrument faces printed on the clear plastic.

The colorful decal sheet set of very fine decals, printed on very thin film, allow you to build only one Italian airplane marked with a black panther painted on the fuselage roundel. The sheet also includes big solid colour decals for the wing undersides, which is very good idea as the modeler won't have problems with finding the paints with colours matching the decals.

Conclusion

Another wonderful kit from Ardpol. Good accuracy (compared with supplied drawings), interesting shape and cool painting scheme (pity that only one). Excellent level of detail (PE included!!!). Not very easy to build due to pretty complex wing cellule. Highly recommended for more experienced modelers!

Thanks to Ardpol for the review kit!