Special Hobby News May 2025

1/72 Gloster Squirt
The first British jet aircraft and the third one in the world that succesfully took to the air was the Gloster E.28/39, called the Pioneer or Squirt. Its development was no doubt the result of the work on the first British jet engine by the designer Frank Whittle and his company Power Jets Ltd. Development of the Power Jets W.1 engine began already in the pre-war years. The first experimental engine was running in 1937. In the spring of 1939, Frank Whittle visited the Gloster company and established cooperation with the chief designer of Gloster, George Carter. The Ministry of Aviation also supported this by issuing the E.28/39 specification. It required Gloster to build two experimental aircraft that would verify that the jet engine could work in an airframe. George Carter designed a small, all-metal aircraft with a nose landing gear. Only the control surfaces were covered with fabric. The landing gear could be very short, due to the absence of a propeller. In the nose of the aircraft was the intake duct of the jet engine, which forked in front of the cockpit and joined behind it. The aircraft did not carry any armament, although the specification originally called for two to four 7.7 mm machine guns. Both aircraft built, W4041 and W4046, did not have cockpit pressurization or even heating, and also lacked a wireless equipment. The flight tests of the W4041 were started with F/Lt. P. E. G. Sayer at the controls on 7 April 1941 and the aircraft reportedly took off several times during these. The official first take-off took place on 15 May 1941 at Cranwell base. The tests of the first prototype were carried out with several breaks until 1944, as the Power Jets W.1 and W.1A engines were constantly under development and changed often. In 1944, W4041 received a more powerful W.2B engine and modified tail surfaces with added stabilizers. The machine kept flying until the spring of 1945 when it was handed over to the Science Museum in South Kensington, where it is still on display.
The kit consits of two grey styrene sprues, a clear plastic sprue with the canopy, fret of etches and a sheet of decals with markings for the prototype in two respective forms.

1/72 Vickers Wellington Mk.IC ‘Night Raiders’
The Vickers Wellington is one of the symbols of the bombing offensive against Germany. After heavy losses in daytime raids at the beginning of the war, Wellingtons switched to night raids. They kept flying in this role for the entire first half of the war. Then they were transferred to Coastal Command, where they served as anti-submarine aircraft. They formed the armament of British RAF squadrons, but foreign squadrons, Czechoslovak, Polish, New Zealand and Canadian, also received them.
The kit contains six sprues of gray plastic parts, one with clear parts, resin cast exhausts and a sheet of decals. These offer markings for two machines of Polish squadrons, one of them in anti-submarine scheme. The other machines flew in RAF night scheme. In addition to the Polish one, named Elzunia (Lissie), the decals contain the markings for two Wellingtons of RAF squadrons. One of them, with a large emblem under the cockpit, flew in Africa. The second, purchased with the money of the native king Nana Sir Ofori Atta I, KBE, ruler of the Akyem Abuakwa Kingdom in the British colony of the Gold Coast (now Ghana), operated from Britain. The last machine from the offer is one of the most successful Wellingtons of No.311 (Czechoslovak) Sqn. RAF

1/72 Kriegsfischkutter ‘WWII German Patrol and Minesweeper Ship’
During World War II, the German armed forces occupied a huge part of the European mainland. This included the coast from northern Norway to the coast of the Peloponnese and the Black Sea coast in the occupied USSR. This entire coast had to be guarded and defended. The capacity of German patrol vessels, including the captured ones, was not enough for this task. Therefore, based on the requirements of the OKM, the Kriegsfischkutter patrol boat, abbreviated as KFK, was developed. Because the need for these ships was enormous, large-scale production began in both German shipyards and shipyards in occupied Europe. 42 shipyards in seven countries were involved. It was the largest naval project of the Third Reich. Over 1,000 ships were ordered, and 612 were delivered by the end of the war. KFKs were assigned to many Marinegruppenkommando along the entire European coast. Within these commands, they were assigned to the relevant flotillas. They were first deployed in 1943 and fought intensively on all European seas until the end of the war. 554 ships out of a total of 612 built were used in combat and 135 of them were sunk in combat. A large number of KFKs were captured at the end of the war and were used at least briefly in many military navies. After the war, KFKs were also used in Germany during the dangerous mine clearance of the Baltic and North Sea.
The plastic model of this ship consists of a total of ten sprues of plastic parts. One of them is made of clear plastic. Decals and instructions are provided for one German KFK. The hull of the kit is 32 cm long and 9 cm wide.

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