Background

Based closely on the North American NA-16 and built under licence in Australia, the Wirraway can be considered instrumental in establishing the country's aviation industry. Prior to the decision to manufacture the Wirraway, Australia relied totally on foreign imports, primarily from Britain, and its adoption sprang from the growing realisation in the late 1930s that the UK aviation industry would struggle to meet demand as international tensions rose and the likelihood of another war grew.

The Wirraway was ideal for Australia's nascent aircraft industry, being relatively simple to build and maintain. It served as a trainer and general purpose aircraft, and it proved to be rugged and adaptable, well suited to the challenging conditions in the region. Following the start of fighting in the Pacific, Wirraways were pressed into front-line operations as light bombers and ground-attack aircraft, and one is credited with downing a Ki-43 in 1942.

A total of 755 Wirraways was built between 1939 and 1946, and the aircraft continued in service with the RAAF until the CAC CA-25 Winjeel replaced it at the end of the 1950s.

The Kit

Special Hobby's Wirraway arrives in a tough and attractive top-opening box, with the main parts and accessories bagged separately. One of the sample kit's plastic pieces had come adrift in the transit - but, strangely, it's not actually shown on the parts diagram in the instructions anyway, so no harm was done.

The kit comprises:

55 x styrene parts moulded in two shades of grey (plus 1 x unused as noted above)

11 x clear styrene parts

17 x resin parts

1 x 3D printed part

37 x etched brass parts with a printed clear film

Decals for 2 x colour schemes

It's important to note at the outset that the kit was first produced in 2008 using Special Hobby's limited-run technology of the time. The company had progressed things to a point that was almost unrecognisable from short-run kits from, say, ten  years earlier, but the models still demanded a degree of extra skill and experience compared with mainstream kits.

Needless to say, that all still applies now - but it's very encouraging to see just how well the mouldings have held up after more than fifteen years, with little flash evident and no problems with sink marks in the review kit. You will have to deal with a few prominent ejection pins, though, either where they will be visible when the model's completed (as in the cockpit) or where they prevent parts fitting together.

The exterior detailing comprises delicately engraved panel lines, plus embossed rivets and a few appliqué panels on metal areas of the original airframe, and a beautifully subtle depiction of the fabric-covered fuselage sides and control surfaces. For me the surface finish with Special Hobby's kits from this era represents "old school" pattern making at its finest, and I actually prefer the way fabric surfaces were handled over most modern mainstream models. 

Test Fit

Dry-fitting the main parts of the airframe is encouraging. The fuselage halves line up perfectly and the front decking ahead of the cockpit sits neatly in place. 

The wings are constructed with a full-span lower piece and separate top panels. The fit is excellent and trailing edges are impressively thin. Taped together, the completed wings tend to sag under their weight which creates gaps at the roots and makes the accompanying photos do the kit a bit of a disservice. In fact, the fit at the roots is very good, especially once the cockpit floor is installed. This also forms the roof of the wheel well and helps spread the fuselage sides slightly. Consequently, the gaps will be minimal if you tape things tight while the joints dry.

The tailplanes are butt-joined to the fuselage and the match at the roots is fine, but you may want to add short pins and drill locating holes to support them.

Overall, I don't foresee any major stumbling blocks assembling the basic airframe, but I'll stress again that the kit will require a bit of extra modelling experience. Anyone with a few short-run builds under their belt  shouldn't have much trouble, but newcomers to our hobby might well find things harder going.

A Few Details

Construction begins as you'd expect with the cockpit, which is nicely detailed with a mix of 40+ styrene, resin and photoetched parts. The basic interior structure is a framework that will benefit from a time spent cleaning them up with a sharp blade or fine file to remove moulding lines. Rather than clean them up, it might actually be easier to replace some of the parts with lengths of stretched sprue or rod using the originals as templates. 

The seats are resin and look very good, and they are provided with multi-part etched harnesses. The cockpit is configured for dual controls and the instrument panels are supplied as classic photo etched fascias with clear films underneath for the faces of the dials.

Many photos show Wirraways with a Vickers K .303 machine gun on a flexible mount in the rear of the cockpit. Special Hobby don't include this, so you'll need to source one elsewhere and do a some scratch-building to fit it and a folding seat for the gunner.

Overall, the "office" should look nice and busy, especially if you add some wiring and control cables.

The resin engine is only made up of 2 pieces, but it really is a gem that will look superb with the addition of pushrods and ignition wiring (not supplied). The styrene propeller is a straightforward moulding, but has a well detailed resin hub. 

The intake under the cowling is supplied as a 3D-printed part.

The main undercarriage is simple and sturdy. Strangely, the instructions show the wheels moulded as halves, but they are actually solid in the sample model, so I guess the kit was revised at some point since I reviewed the original release back in 2008. The gear legs should clean up well and are provided with etched oleo scissors. 

There's a choice of tailwheels - either styrene or resin. Not surprisingly, the resin version is the crispest.

The clear parts are well moulded. The instructions indicate to slice off the rear section of the canopy - something best done with a fine razor saw. Photoetched hand grips are included to install inside the canopy.

Instructions & Decals

Special Hobby include a neat colour-printed instruction booklet, with assembly broken down into 13 manageable stages. The diagrams are clear and well-sized, and the overall sequence is logical - although experienced modellers will no doubt tackle some parts in a different order to suit their prefer way of building and painting.

Colour matches for Gunze Sangyo paints are provided for most details throughout assembly and the overall paint schemes.

The kit includes decals for a pair of Wirraways, the first sporting an overall Trainer Yellow finish, and the second painted in Foliage Green with a white tail and wing leading edges.

A. CAC CA-9 Wirraway s/n A20-617, No.86 Sqn. RAAF, Northern Australia

B. CAC CA-9 Wirraway s/n A20-637, QE-J, No.4 Sqn. RAAF, New Guinea 1944

The decals look to be good quality, being very thin and glossy. If you use a powerful magnifier you can tell that some of the colours are printed as very fine dots - not my ideal way of doing things - but this isn't apparent to the naked eye at normal viewing distances. There is a bit of excess carrier film evident, but experience with Special Hobby's decals has shown this to snuggle down nicely and disappear - just use a little extra care to ensure the thin items don't fold over themselves.

Conclusion

It's great to see Special Hobby's Wirraway again and I'm delighted to see how well it's held up after more than 15 years. Like pretty much any kit produced using the limited-run technology of that era, it's not really suitable for beginners, but experienced modellers shouldn't encounter anything they can't take in their stride. The result will be a model that does justice to an aircraft that is hugely important in Australian aviation history and that can sit nicely alongside mainstream Harvard and Texan kits.

Kit #SH48242 is available now from Special Hobby - Price: 39.90 Euros

Many thanks to Special Hobby for the review sample.

Please remember, when contacting retailers or manufacturers, to mention that you saw their products highlighted here - on AEROSCALE