Eduard Weekend Edition Nieuport Ni-16
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This delightful sesquiplane kit is a basic reissue of Eduard’s
magnificent Ni-16 kit. This was very ably reviewed by Marc Flake in the
May
2006 Internet Modeler although he built up the Profipack kit from
that series. In the first sentence of his article, Marc mentions that
further history of the aircraft can be found in the April 2005 issue of
Internet Modeler. For that reason, I’ll spend most of my energy
on discussing differences between the Weekend Edition and the Profipack.
First, when you open the box, you’ll find all the parts are in
a resealable plastic bag which Eduard has been doing for some time now.
That’s really pretty handy. The parts are molded very cleanly and
I know, having built this model (albeit not to completion yet) that the
engineering is excellent. There are two sprues of tan styrene and a separate
bag for the clear windscreen. You only get one decal option with this
kit rather than the extensive decal sheet you get with the Profipack.
Still, it’s a very colorful bird, so there’s nothing to complain
about, in my opinion.
Also, where the Profipack included tons of photoetch details, you only
get the styrene parts with the Weekend Edition. There are some things
that do look better with photoetch, and you can certainly dress this one
up. Many parts, however, don’t really make it in the 2D world of
photoetch; again, I’m not sorely disappointed by the lack of PE
in this kit. The only thing that really leaps out as wanting is the seat,
but that can be remedied with a PE seat from the spares box or careful
drilling and sanding of the styrene seat.
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I’m speculating, but I believe that there are two points to Weekend
Edition kits. First, they are much cheaper than the regular or even the
Profipack kits. Whereas the Profipack version of this kit was running
in the US$30 range when it first was released, this Weekend Edition kit
retails for $12.95 at stores I’ve seen in the Seattle area. If you
already plunked down your money on that expensive version, you can buy
one of these kits for about a third the cost and use your spare decals
on it if you like. Second, Eduard is encouraging the actual building of
kits. I know that I’m guilty of putting away expensive kits to savor
“someday” like it’s a bottle of Dom Perignon or whatever.
With the more basic kits, the point is picking it up and building it in
a couple days. Hence the “Weekend” kit.
I really like what Eduard is doing as far as quality goes, and they’re
getting away from the huge photoetch frets that were the hallmark of their
early releases. They’re stressing everything today that will encourage
modelers to actually put the kits together, such as clean molding, no
sink marks and fit that’s engineered like Tamiya. This kit is no
exception to that trend.
Many thanks for letting me review this kit, and I’ll look forward
to building it in a weekend!
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