A
Brief History
In March 1937 the Italian Air Ministry issued a call for bids for a
“fast maritime reconnaissance seaplane”. The current reconnaissance plane
(Cant Z 501) was found to be unable to meet any of the requirements for open sea
missions besides range. The call for bids specified that the wingspan not exceed
22.5 meters and the height not be greater than 5.4 meters so that existing
hangers could accommodate the craft. The Air Ministry was asking for a maximum
speed of at least 217 mph at 3280 feet and a cruising speed of 186 mph.
The CMASA factory (Costruzioni
Meccaniche Aeronautiche Societa’ Anonima) had already gained a good degree of
experience with flying boats from building the Dornier Wal aircraft under
license and won the bid with the RS 14 (Ricognizione Stiavelli 14) which
featured an entirely stressed-skin metal structure and racer like look. The
floatplane aspect was probably influenced by the recent Schneider Trophy
competition and the Heinkel He 111 most likely influenced the glass nose.
The RS 14 prototype
was first flown in 1939 with a maximum speed of 254 mph reached at 13120 feet.
This craft even was able to perform loops. By December 1941 the first maritime
unit was equipped with this aircraft in a training capacity and the aircraft
became fully operational by early 1942. Ultimately only about 57 aircraft ever
reached operational status and by the time of the armistice in 1943 only 28 were
serviceable. These aircraft were reorganized to fly antisubmarine patrols for
the allies and later were switched to air/sea rescue and liaison missions. In
1948 all remaining aircraft were struck off and scrapped.
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The Kit
This is an all resin kit and weighs in at three pounds on the dot. The
kit includes 64 resin pieces cast in a light tan resin that is just soft enough
to whittle with a razor knife. There are four white metal struts for the floats
and three sheets of clear acetate parts for the various canopy panes (20
pieces). The resin pieces display excellent casting with nicely engraved panel
lines and, for the most part, very small pour stubs. A few pieces have large
pour stubs like the radiator housings and some other engine parts. Both the
propellers were bent and will need a hot water treatment to straighten them out.
My kit has a very small piece broken off from the pilot’s canopy frame but
that should be repairable with no trouble. There is a fair amount of fine flash
around the nose framing but all of the other resin pieces are nearly 100% free
of flash.
I examined the resin
parts with great care and could fine no pinholes in any of the parts. There were
a few internal air bubbles visible but nothing that would interfere with the
construction or painting of the model. The clear acetate parts have a very
slight milky look to them that may or may not come out with a treatment of
Future. The design of the clear parts has them being placed inside the resin
framework in sections that will be inset so as to keep the exterior lines clean.
They seem to be thin enough to achieve this result but it is obvious that care
will have to be taken when they are installed. They are intended to be put in
place after the fuselage is assembled.
After cleaning up the
fine mold line that ran around the perimeter of the fuselage halves I taped them
together to check the fit. They have a very slight, almost un-noticeable arch to
them that could be corrected with sanding of preferably a hot water treatment.
On one fuselage half the wing mounting holes had not been all drilled out. This
created about a half an hour of work to drill the hole and ensure that it had
the proper alignment. The wings feature two large mounting stubs and slide into
place quite easily and fit very well. It will not be necessary to do much gap
filling on the wing joint.
The interior is
somewhat sparse but I purchased the Ali D’Italia Fiat RS 14 booklet, which has
many excellent interior photographs and will be a great aid in scratch detailing
the interior. I imagine that the interior could be done straight from the box
and be acceptable but for a kit that carries this kind of price-tag (MSPR
$159.95 USD) I would have expected a little more under that canopy.
The decals appear to
be perfectly in registry and seem to have very good color density. The kit
provides decals for three different aircraft but seems to lack any maintenance
stencils. That may be accurate though, as I study the photographs of actual
aircraft being serviced I do not see any stenciling. The kit also includes an
8-page instruction booklet with very nice exploded assembly views and a brief
color chart that includes Federal Standard numbers, Gunze-Sangyo, Humbrol,
Testors and MKRA paint numbers. Unfortunately it only lists four colors so many
smaller details will be up to the modeler to determine the correct color.
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Conclusions
This looks to be a very exciting kit. Care needs to be taken when
cleaning parts up, especially around the fine interior brace on the floats. From
all appearances it should build up into an excellent representation of a rare
and unusual seaplane. I strongly recommend that the reference booklet Ali
D’Italia Fiat RS 14 be purchased with the kit.
Matt
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