Tamiya 300061112 – 1: 48 Scale Avro Lancester B Mk I/III Model Aeroplane

Product Information

This time around, Tamiya has moulded the B. Mk.I/III and Grand Slam Lancaster kits in their customary medium grey coloured plastic. I am sure that the quality of the plastic is the same as it ever was, but the parts look even better in grey.

Interior detail is adequate, but little will be seen though the canopy and turrets in any case. Even so, the kit’s interior elements will form a nice basis for a super detailing project using either scratch built parts or aftermarket accessories, notably Eduard’s comprehensive suite of photo-etched frets. A number of other sprues moulded in 2009 provide new nacelle fronts with recessed panel detail and unshrouded exhausts, bulged and flattened main wheels with smooth tyres, and parts for the late rear turret with two .50 cal machine guns. Definitely the best 1/48 Lancaster on the market, this beats the old Tamiya kit 50 ways from Sunday - and unlike the B-17 kit, it is competitive with the older kit cost-wise nowadays. The kit is complex but not complicated and presents no difficulty that an experienced modeler will have any problem with. The end result is very impressive. Highly recommended for all Lancaster fans. H-K Models first released a Lancaster kit in 1/32 in 2018. This 1/48 kit was released this year, 2021. It is a “scaledown” of the larger kit, in the same way the 1/48 B-17G is a scaledown of their 1/32 B-17G. The kit is not as complex as the larger kit, but it is the most detailed 1/48 Lancaster, with the best production quality.What a neat build and article. The Lancaster really was the brain child of people who could make lemon aide from a lemon. The Manchester had some good designs like the fuselage and the Brits realized that by adding those extra Merlin's and by manufacturing the fuselage in sections for ease of maintenance and rebuild they came up with a winner. The Manchester/Lancaster had a bigger bomb bay than the B-24 and B-17 and could carry more bombs. Had the Germans taken their Heinkel He 177 and add two more engines out board of the originals and dropped the complex transmissions used in the original design they too would have had their own Lancaster. But, that idea came too late in the war.

The five crew figures from the 1975 release are included in both new kits, and all the other original features are present too – bomb bay with separate doors and bombs, alternate turret armament and two basic Merlin engines. The flaps are fully detailed and can be assembled either up or down without problem - a nice touch since many kits with “positionable” flaps are really only “positionable” in the down position. I decided to do these down, just because I'd never had a Lancaster kit with that option.The kit has the same beautifully-petite surface detail one expects in an H-K Models kit. The three gun turrets are models in their own right. Full Merlin XX engines are provided, which will provide a good basis for any modeler wishing to construct a diorama of a Lancaster undergoing maintenance. As with the B-17s and B-25s, the wings do not have to be glued in position. They can be slid into position and remain solid, or be removed later if you are storing the model. This is also the case with the horizontal stabilizers, and is a nice touch.

I finally turned to the fuselage. There is a full interior provided, which I assembled, only to find when the fuselage was closed up that one can really only see the pilot's position and the edge of the navigator's table behind him. If I was to do this again, I would save time and not deal with all the never-to-be-seen-again detail. The kit provides a full bomb load of six 1,000-lb bombs and a 4,000-lb “cookie” in a nicely-detailed bomb bay, but I opted to close the bomb bay doors and preserve the aircraft's lines.While the Lancaster was truly amazing in its ability to carry ever-heavier weapons, it is unfortunate that the result of the expenditure of all this vast collection of men and material did not measure up to what was sacrificed. The men of Bomber Command were truly "the flower of the British Empire," and they fought a harder, more difficult, and more dangerous war than was the experience of their American allies, who lost more men in the strategic bombing campaign than the Marines lost in all Pacific battles from Guadalcanal to Okinawa. The crews were fully the equal of their mount and the two together might have been a decisive force in the outcome of the war beyond mere destruction, had Churchill been willing to take the political heat of firing "Bomber" Harris, OC of Bomber Command in January 1944, for gross insubordination and disobedience - a charge that was made against him by his American allies for his refusal to meaningfully participate in Operation Pointblank, the bomber offensive against the Luftwaffe and the German aircraft industry that had been determined at the Casablanca Conference in February 1943. Kit has 4 kinds of markings including the one with pinup girl nose art. It sets off the large fuselage of the Lancaster. I decided to go with gluing the horizontal stabilizers in position for strength, while attaching the wings without gluing them.

The Manchester was robbed of any chance of successfully achieving the design specification when it was saddled with the 24-cylinder X-type Rolls-Royce Vulture as its powerplant. The first prototype, L7246, flew on July 25, 1939. The first Manchester was delivered to 207 Squadron in December, 1940, and made its operational debut with a raid on Brest the night of February 24-25, 1941. The failure of the Manchester was due to the inability of Rolls-Royce to cure the teething problems of the Vulture engine, which proved completely unreliable in service.

Hih quality moulding; lots of useful options; good level of detail; includes several newly tooled sprues; five crew figures included. Apart from the decals, the main difference between the two kits is the bomb bay. While the B.Mk.I/III includes the standard bomb bay with conventional and Cookie bombs, the Dambusters boxing provides two sprues - one with the Grand Slam bomb and bay, and the second with the Dambuster parts. parts in grey plastic (kit no. 61112); 51 parts in clear; decals for three (Dambuster) or four (B.Mk.I/III) options.