Al's Old Kit Corner

By Al Superczynski

Faller 1/100 Viscount 814, kit #1814

The Germans must really like 1/100 scale aircraft kits! Just as Plasticart in the DDR, Faller in the FRG did a number of kits in this scale. Unfortunately they didn't do as many airliners but their Viscount is typical of the range.

The kit contains 41 parts, most molded in silver plastic but including the props and wheels in light gray, nacelle lips and prop bosses in red, and windows in a foggy clear. Panel lines and rivet detail are raised, with control surface outlines recessed - the rudder and flaps are separate and meant to be moveable. The clear parts are designed to be installed from the inside and do not fit flush with the surface skin. Landing gear is very simple but sturdy. Strangely there are no gear wells at all molded into the wings but a fairly deep separate well is included for the nose gear.

The kit is designed to allow spinning props, with accommodation for four miniature Faller electric motors in the cowlings. I'm not entirely sure how these worked since I've never seen one and there are no wiring diagrams on the kit instructions. Perhaps the motors included miniature batteries but I didn't realize such small batteries were available during the time these kits were produced. In any case the cowlings and props appear to be a press fit, allowing access to replace the motors and/or batteries after construction.

My kit is very smooth and cleanly molded with little flash and very fine mold parting lines on the detail parts. The instructions are very basic, limited to an exploded view of the parts and minimal text, all in German. The decal sheet features very heavy carrier film and mine is badly yellowed and probably unusable.

Given the availability of a resin 800 fuselage from CBS Models to convert the far superior Glencoe/Hawk Viscount 700 kit I would rate the Faller model as one strictly of interest to collectors.