MPM 1/72 Stinson L-1 Vigilant

MPM 1:72 STINSON L-1 VIGILANT

Reviewer: Peter Hobbins (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 3 March 2002

The Kit:
To those of us who build models of RAAF aircraft, the Stinson/Vultee Vigilant has long posed two problems: uncertainty as to whether the type ever wore RAAF markings, and lack of a kit. MPM – who currently appear to be producing a series of light observation types – have come to the rescue on the latter count by offering quite a decent 1:72 model of the Vigilant, which makes things easier than tracking down the old Execuform vacform.

The kit is presented in their usual end-opening (and therefore crushable) box, but in a new development this features a photo rather than a painting on the cover. While I’m a fan of box art, for an aircraft as poorly documented as the Vigilant, the box-top photo actually offers some useful guidance when detailing the model. Inside are 34 pieces in the standard MPM soft light-grey plastic, plus a two-piece injected canopy and a small fret of photoetched parts. There are no resin parts – something of a backward step compared with MPM’s earlier offerings. An 8-page A5 booklet provides the instructions and painting diagrams, and the nice-looking decal sheet contains options for four USAAC/USAAF machines.

Construction:
Assembly requires the usual skills associated with making limited-run kits, but adds new challenges associated with the way the original aircraft was designed. MPM have also missed the chance to include a few extra features that could have made the kit a lot more rewarding. The most obvious of these is the barren cockpit in an aircraft that is extensively glazed. Photos clearly show a complex framework within the cockpit, but all the kit includes is two seats, a rudimentary instrument panel and a stick. This leaves the modeller only a fairly poor range of documentary evidence and their imagination to fill out this very exposed area. As the cockpit cavity was easy to access, I actually inserted the floor section and glued the fuselage halves together before working on it. I scored the doorframes on the inside of the starboard cockpit wall to match the exterior engraving, then added sidewall detail and a few items like a radio and first-aid kit that seemed likely to have been carried by Vigilants in service. The cockpit was painted and then seats were added (with seat belts added from tape).

The prominent canopy provides a host of problems when building the kit, but MPM have done probably the best they could given the complex shape of the original. It comes in two pieces joined along the centreline – not a lot of fun to sand smooth! The plastic itself is not brilliantly clear so I dipped it in Johnson’s ‘Shine Magic’ to improve its appearance. The wings attach directly to the sides of the canopy in a butt joint, so I surmised that there had to have been one or two spars running through this area and drilled holes in the canopy sides to allow for these as an aid to construction. In an attempt to reproduce the complex framework inside the canopy, I painted a long piece of plastic rod USAAC interior green then cut it into sections and glued them directly to the inside of the canopy using clear parts cement. A few resin pieces – or even a diagram – would have been very useful in portraying this framing. The canopy attaches pretty well to the fuselage, but after it was in place I decided that there was a high risk of scratching it while attaching the wings, so I masked the clear panels at this point (and was glad that I had).

I separated the elevators from the tailplanes and the rudder from the fuselage – easy to do with MPM’s soft plastic. The tailplanes were a butt joint so I drilled small holes in them and the fuselage sides and inserted my own small ‘spars’ to strengthen the joint. The control surfaces were then repositioned as per photos, and I moved on to the wings. These are straightforward – just upper and lower halves – but were fiddly to get right. I glued the halves together then inserted ‘spars’ to match the holes I had drilled in the canopy. An equal number of photos show the slats of the Vigilant either retracted or open when on the ground; after much um-ing and ah-ing I decided to separate them from the leading edges and reattached them just slightly forward of the wings. It would have been much simpler – and no doubt more accurate – if MPM had provided the slats as separate pieces, but I’m still glad I cut mine free as I think this detail adds a lot the character of the aircraft. On real Vigilants the ailerons drooped 20 degrees when the flaps were lowered; I felt that to cut these full-span control surfaces free would compromise the solidity of the wings too much so I left them flush.

Even with guiding spars, attaching the wings to the top of the canopy was a tricky procedure as the joint is not a strong one and the dihedral has to be set correctly. After liquid glue I used superglue (which did not fog the clear parts thanks to the coating of Shine Magic on the canopy), and then a little Mr Surfacer. Following some careful sanding – during which I congratulated myself on having already masked the clear parts – the wings were faired into the lines of the canopy framing. The underwing struts did not fit into the locating score marks on the undersurface of the wings, so the latter were filled and sanded and the struts attached as close as possible to these points. There are a few smaller struts attached to the main struts: the kit parts looked too thick, so I replaced these with plastic rod. The small aerial posts on the tops of the tops of the mainplanes are clearly designed to frustrate modellers by snapping off at regular intervals …

The undercarriage is also a fiddly arrangement of three pieces which only attach vaguely to each other. I decided that as some of these points would need reinforcing superglue and sanding, I actually built the undercarriage assemblies separate from the airframe, then once they were all complete I superglued them to the fuselage. Getting the model to sit level on these awkward pieces was something of a challenge! At this point I applied the few photoetched parts – the flap guides under the wings – and drilled a small hole for the underwing landing light.

Always read the kit instructions! In this case, I was perusing the brief history of the Vigilant on the front page of the instructions when I noticed that they said the type used a 9-cylinder Lycoming R-680-9 engine. Because another modeller had recently pointed out that the Pavla P-43 has the wrong number of cylinders for its engine banks (9 instead of 7), I thought I would check and – to my surprise – found that MPM have given their Vigilant a 7-cylinder engine! After hunting down pictures of a Lycoming R-680 I discarded the kit part and replaced it with a modified 9-cylinder unit from the spares box. I thinned down the rear of the kit cowling and attached it to the model with Blu-tac for painting. The kit propeller also benefited from a little extra detailing on the hub.

Painting and version:
After reviewing all my references and contacting the RAAF Museum, I was no wiser as to the markings that the RAAF’s Vigilant may have worn. However, as it was likely to have been an ex-USAAC machine based in the Philippines, I painted it olive drab over neutral grey, and placed early-war style (i.e. red-centred) RAAF roundels in all six positions. The only kit decal I used was one of the tail numbers – suitably scrambled – and these settled down nicely although I felt they were a tad out of register.

Conclusion:
Compared with my references, the MPM Vigilant scales out perfectly in span and just a tad under in length. It’s a surprisingly large machine – noticeably larger than a Wirraway for instance – but as with most MPM kits it really captures the shape and feel of this relatively obscure type. In summary, this kit allows you to produce a nice-looking model of an interesting type, but you’ll need some patience, references, imagination and a spares box to get it up to scratch.

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