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scale models

Westland Lysander Mk.I

2/ Lentolaivue 16, Finnish Air Force, Hirvas airfield, Finland, January 1943

The Lysander was one of the first kits that I built, after coming back to the hobby. That was a very nice kit by Eduard. I wanted to build another Lysander for some time but I could not find the Eduard kit again, since it has been discontinued. A couple of weeks ago, I did find a Lysander kit on eBay, from Italeri. In fact it is a rebooting of a kit first introduced by Hawk in… 1967! I knew it would not be an easy kit to build and that it is very basic on details (in essence, none). However I decided it would be a good challenge.

Since I had some left over parts from the Eduard kit, I decided to use them and build this kit as a Finnish Lysander with skis instead of wheels.

As I started to build the kit, I couldn’t bring myself to just keep the kit’s cockpit – a plain instrument panel (no details, just decals) and two basic seats with a fuel tank between them. So, I ended up reconstructing the cockpit from scratch. I used plasticard for the floor, plastic rods for the structure and the pilot’s seat and a few parts from the spares’ box, like a spitfire instrument panel and some left-over parts from the Eduard Lysander. The fuel tank that sits in the middle was made using my 3d-printer.

All in all it was a nice experience and a good way to pass two modelling weeks. It was refreshing to go back to the basics for a change.


The Work in Progress


The finished model


Products Used

KitBoxScaleCode
Italeri Westland Lysander Mark III1/48804