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Fox One 1/144 Westland Lysander Mk.I

By Matt Bittner

The Kit

Fox One's 1/144 Lysander Mk.I consists of 40 pieces of cream resin and one clear resin canopy. ALPS-generated decals are for two aircraft: No.16(AX) Sq., RAF, Old Sarum and 2/LeLv. 16, Finnish Air Force. Since the decals are ALPS-generated, care must be taken with handling.

Construction starts with the cockpit, and this is a most complete cockpit. You receive a one-piece floor, to which you attach two seats, a control column and the radio items for the rear gunner. There are also separate parts for the sidewalls, even though the detailing on the fuselage halves is most extensive. In addition, once the fuselage halves are assembled there is also an upper piece to the fuselage/cockpit to make it extremely complete. Plus, if you want to add them, there are two "pilots" for each station. Very nice! If you don't add the pilots, you may want to add seat belts, but that's about the only thing you'll need to add.

Once the cockpit is finished and the fuselage halves and upper fuselage are glued together, then construction continues by adding the clear, resin canopy (in my opinion a little too thick, making it difficult to see all the excellent interior detail), nose/cowl/engine, engine-front and tail pieces. While the instructions show the addition of the propeller at this point, it's best left off until the very end.

While the next step shows adding the landing gear, you might want to leave these off until after painting. Since there is masking involved both on the landing gear spats and around the gear on the fuselage, it would be easier to mask with these items not on, yet. Same goes with the addition of the wings and wing struts. Depending on the fit, it might be best to paint the completed fuselage, wings and gear spats separately then join them together later on, and do some touch-up painting afterwards.

The last of the bits to be added are the "winglets" that hang off the landing gear and the bombs that go on them. Plus there are bombs you could add to the underside of the fuselage, or, if the machine you're finishing it as had the 20mm Oerlikon hanging of the sides of the fuselage, those can be added as well.

Conclusion

All in all a superb 1/144 kit of the Lysander from Fox One. One item of note. Fox One provides their resin parts attached to "trees", or "sprue" like plastic injected kits. Most other resin suppliers provide their parts attached to pour blocks, but not Fox One. This definitely helps in the removal of the parts and clean up is minimal. More resin companies should provide their kit parts in the exact same way. Fox One's Lysander takes 1/144 resin to a whole new level. This will make a stunning model when finished.

My thanks to Fox One for the review sample.