Valom DeHav DH-91 Albatross

I have really grown to love Valom as a kitmaker. Not that they are necessarily easy kits to build, but because their subject choices seem to be tailor-made for me personally. Their DH-91 is a good case in point. A four-engined interwar British airliner, which coincidentally is one of the prettiest planes ever to fly? Sign me up.

Reality sets in pretty quickly though. Fit is not great, and with a coming NMF, that causes some disquiet early on. There is a nice little Avalon masking set for the kit – none of the other usual suspects even gave it a try – though it was vinyl, which is not the best medium for masking in my opinion. I’m a big fan of Japanese Kabuki tape due to its flexibility. Vinyl is not as bad as the label material used recently by MikroMir, but it has some issues conforming to curves. Luckily most of the panes on the DH-91 are pretty flat, so the only potential issue was getting the masks off after painting was complete.

So lots of PSR and more than my usual amount of priming. I finally decided that the time had come for paint, and shot a coat of Alclad White Aluminum (my NMF of choice in most cases). There were some formula issues that required a reshoot, but one begins to expect that on occasion here in the modeller’s paradise that is 72 Land.

The decals cooperated fully. Except for one bit, which is fully down to my not paying attention. There was one marking I expected to find on the decal sheet, since it was the same color as the registration lettering and didn’t seem to be that complex a shape. I was surprised when I got to the decal stage and discovered that, nope, the marking wasn’t there. A bit of a mystery, since the blue used by Imperial Airways doesn’t seem to be a standard one, and matching it would be a chore. So, sorry, for those of you that prize accuracy above all else. (And more importantly, what are you doing on this site in the first place?) I just left that marking off. I don’t think it detracts terribly from the overall look of the model, but just knowing it isn’t there is aggravating.

Still, it’s a finished DH-91, a type that I never thought would be done as an injected plastic kit. It will look nice in the commercial aircraft section. But it basically has me thinking “Flamingo! Flamingo! Flamingo!” as a sequel. We modellers are hard to satisfy.

The lineup of upcoming Valom models is as follows: first the B-45, then the Sparrow, then the Albemarle, the Salmon, and that big Boeing XF8F. Sometime soon, the Twin Pin will make its appearance as well. Like I said earlier, I do love their type selection.

This is completed aircraft #510 (8 aircraft, 1 ordnance, 2 vehicle for the year 2019), finished in March of 2019.