Pro Resin 1/72 Folland Gnat FO-141 By Dave Flitton

Overview

This kit is the first in a line of Gnats by Pro Resin. The Fo.141 Gnat was a British all-metal fighter and trainer designed by Folland to be small and economical, yet capable of high performance. Derived from the even-more-diminutive Fo.139 Midge prototype, the Gnat possessed outstanding performance features including a 10,000 foot-per-minute climb rate, and a roll rate in excess of 360 degrees per second.

The prototype first flew in 1955, when it demonstrated performance impressive enough to warrant the manufacture of six test aircraft for the Ministry of Supply. These aircraft were used in a variety of configurations, including the fitting of one with two 30mm cannon to test the aircraft's effectiveness in the ground attack role. However, the British government subsequently lost interest in the Gnat as a possible fighter, deciding instead to employ it as an advanced two-place trainer.

The Kit

The kit is cast in Pro Resins’ standard yellowish resin. Be sure to wash the parts as the kit is covered in a light layer of mold release. Glues and paints will not adhere well to this stuff so wash well and carefully. The parts themselves have a fine finish, petite details and some minor flash. Some of the parts I received have bits of the mold itself embedded in the parts so yours may have some extra cleanup required on the bomb pylons. My wings had some pits, short shots and major damage that will have to be filled in before building. This will cause some of this beautiful recessed detail to be lost.

Cockpit detail is beautiful but inaccurate according to some of the photos I have of the single seat Gnat. Inaccuracies may be due to the resources I have of restored and non-restored examples in various museums so don’t go by my word. Pro Resin has opted to not provide photo-etch details for the cockpit, this is unfortunate for me since I love photo-etch panels and the ease by which tiny details can be achieved with little work. You will have to paint your own - good luck.

Canopies are provided as vacu-formed pieces. There are two different versions and they come in pairs. Although thin, the canopies are rather cloudy and my pieces had air bubbles in the “clear” parts rendering them unusable. I will have to be careful which pieces to use. If you are going to use the RAF version of the canopy, Pro Resin has thoughtfully added a piece to fill in the void created by cutting up the fuselage to accept the new canopy.

Instructions seem to be well thought out and acceptable with lots of painting call outs to help in completing the model. The single most flaw would be the gray scale camouflage schemes on the last two panels of the instruction sheet. You can’t tell if the Indian version of the aircraft is mostly an aluminum color or some sort of pale blue overall. Your guess is as good (or better) than mine.

Decals are in register and well printed, just be careful when trying to make them adhere over bumps and recessed detail as they are very stubborn to any form of decal softener. (Note: this was true with the first Pro Resin decals, but since Pro Resin is now using Begemot as their decal provider I doubt the same problems exist. See Bill Powers' XF-92 article for how these new decals work. Ed.)

The two large (relative to the plane’s size) drop tanks are provided, again very nice detail. The little plane had only 500 mile combat radius with external fuel!

There are beautiful decals of the two planes with stencils. Stencils add a finishing touch to a model, so having nice ones on the decal sheet are a real plus. I had planned to build the Finish one but those Yugo decals are colorful!

Conclusion

I recommend Pro Resin in producing a little kitted series of important aircraft. Apparently Airfix produced a trainer version of this aircraft a long time ago, Pro Resin has added to this line of aircraft and surpassed Airfix’s efforts to produce a beauty of a kit of this diminutive fighter. With a little patience this kit will build into a fine replica. Buy them all, and have fun.

Thanks to Pro Resin for the review model.