Czech Master Resin 1/72
Westland Wapiti IIA
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History
Air Ministry Specification 26/27 was drawn up in 1927 for a general-purpose
airplane to replace the aging Bristol F2B and DeHavilland D.H.9A for patrolling
and policing the Empire. The Westland Wapiti won over competing designs
from Armstrong-Whitworth, Bristol, Gloster, De Havilland, Fairey and Vickers
largely because of its incorporation of many D.H.9A components. The financially
strapped RAF already had large inventories of Ninak parts spread around
the world making the acquisition and operation of the Wapiti cheaper than
the others. Earlier on, due to heavy wartime production requirements at
DeHavilland’s Westland had done the design and development work
to convert the D.H.9 to accept the American designed and built Liberty
V-12 engine. The Wapiti became, essentially, a developed version of the
Ninak. Petters Limited, a manufacturer of Diesel engines, started Westland
Aircraft Works, at Yeovil in Somerset, in 1915. Early in WWI Petters offered
their facilities and expertise to the government to make anything needed
for the war effort. Ultimately they produced 808 airplanes designed by
other firms. Their biggest involvement in aircraft design was adapting
the D.H.9 to accept the Liberty engine thus creating the D.H. 9A “Nine-Ack*”
or “Ninak”. By the time production ended in 1932 Westland’s
had built a total of 565 Wapitis of all marks.
At a glance the Wapiti has a disproportionately large fin/rudder at
the end of a too-short fuselage. This is the result of an error in the
final engineering drawings. Stability and control of the new design had
been carefully confirmed in Westland’s wind tunnel so when the prototype
was found to be directionally unstable the aerodynamicists were puzzled.
Investigation revealed the final drawings had omitted one entire fuselage
bay of 18 inches (.46m) in length! As all drawings were released and production
already underway the fix was to add area to the fin and rudder by cut-and-try
until the airplane was directionally stable. The missing bay was not restored
until production of the Mk. V, by which time 466 planes had been built.
The Brits are really good at muddling through.
*In the spoken alphabet used by British and Commonwealth forces
in WWI, the letter”A” was “Ack”; thus we have,
for instance, “Ack-Ack” for Anti-Aircraft.
The Kit
 The
kit for the airplane itself includes 100 parts will cast in CMR’s
familiar pale cream-colored resin, 12 parts cast in extra strength white
resin for the cabane, interplane and landing gear struts plus two vac
formed windscreens. Other than a small, easily filled, bubble hole in
each main tire, the parts in the review kit are defect free. One very
serious disappointment in this kit is the absence of nose ribs on both
wings and the absence of all rib detail on the underside of the wings
– shades of Aurora 55 years ago! The serious builder will have to
add 76 rib tapes on the wing undersides. I will use .005” styrene
strips for these and for the 144 nose ribs missing from both sides of
both wings.
To arm your Wapiti beyond its one fixed, forward firing and one flexibly
mounted, .303 caliber guns, CMR give you, in addition, to the 112 parts
already noted, 20 bombs. My sources say the Wapiti’s bomb load capacity
was 580 pounds. Taken literally, the second of two bomb load options sown
by CMR will overload your plane by 124 pounds so you’d better leave
your observer/gunner at base for those missions. Of course in Frontier
conditions operating with a big overload was not uncommon so if your take
off ground is long enough, go for it.
Four pages presenting 12 photos from Westland’s archives are included
in the kit packaging. These show us several Wapiti IIAs with geared engines
in RAF service. These are good references for the serious modeler. The,
very well illustrated, instructions comprise another nine pages of informative
material on assembly, color and markings.
 The
well printed, in perfect register, decal sheet gives us markings for five
airplanes; three with the geared Bristol Jupiter VIIIF engine and two
with the direct drive Jupiter VIII engine. An engine is said to be “geared”
when it is fitted with reduction gearing in the nose of the crankcase
to reduce the RPM of the crankshaft to something more agreeable to propellers.
Conclusion
I suspect this subject will sell very well in the UK as, although not
very good looking, the Wapiti was one of the main inter-war airplanes
operated throughout the British Empire and faults not withstanding, it
is a good kit.
Many thanks to CMR for providing the review sample.
References
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The Book of Westland: A. H. Lukens, Aircraft (Technical) Publications,
Ltd., and UK, 1945.
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Profile Number 32: C.F. Andrews, Profile Publications, Ltd., UK.
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Planes; autumn 1982: five view drawing by A. Granger.
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