Pavla 1/72 scale Republic P-43A-1 Lancer

Manufacturer: Pavla, available from Squadron Mail Order, 1115 Crowley Drive, Carrollton, TX 75011-5010, 972-242-8663 www.squadron.com
Kit: No. 72026
Scale: 1/72
Price: $18.98
Comments: Injection-molded, 46 parts (8 resin, 3 vacuum-formed plastic), decals
Pros: Good recessed panel lines, nice resin parts, excellent decals
Cons: Some plastic parts are molded thicker than their mates, overall poor fit

Republic Aviation's P-43A "Lancer" was an interim fighter ordered by the USAAC to keep the assembly lines going until the P-47 could be put into production. P-43s were built between September 1940 and August 1941. The Lancer was about the same size as Republic's previous fighter, the Seversky P-35, but you can definitely see the lines of the P-47 developing in the P-43.


Molded in soft gray plastic, Pavla's kit features finely recessed panel lines, nicely detailed resin parts, an excellent decal sheet, and a very thin vacuum-formed canopy. However, you will have to make many of the smaller pieces yourself, including the guns and the pitot tube.


After checking the fit of major components, problems found throughout the kit became apparent. Aware of the difficulties, I made a few modifications to the assembly sequence.


First, I trimmed the aft cockpit bulkhead and glued the fuselage halves to it. This way I avoided having the cockpit force the fuselage halves too far apart for the lower wing. The rest of the cockpit pieces were sanded and filed to fit the fuselage and lower wing. I sprayed the entire cockpit area interior green and the instrument panel scale black. There is no sidewall detail, but once the seat is in you canpt see much anyway.

At this point the asymmetrical cross-sections of the kit's fuselage halves were obvious. I concentrated on knocking down the higher areas along the top and bottom seams with files and sandpaper. I left the seat, control stick, and turbo-supercharger for later installation. The fuselage stubs for the horizontal stabilizers were larger than the stabilizers, so more work was needed there. Finally, I removed the curved fairing from the inboard edge of the elevators along the recessed panel line; production models of the P-43 did not have these fairings. I did not offset the vertical stabilizer and rudder the three degrees called for in the instructions; in this scale, thatps a pretty small measurement.


Mating the wings to the fuselage was a challenge. The forward and aft bulkheads of the wheel wells must be filed lower so they donpt impinge on the fuselage. Due to Pavla's lopsided fuselage, the opening for the wing on the right side was higher than the left side. Even after I fitted the wing and including the proper dihedral, the right wingtip sat about 3/8" higher than the left. I filed down the left side and put shims in the right opening to get the wings even and still had to gently bend the wings to make them sit right. I used gap-filling super glue to take care of the resulting seams.


This shape difference carries into the construction of the separate engine cowling. I corrected it the same way as I did the fuselage. Also, the opening of the cowl must be filed into a more oval shape like that of the P-47. I had to adjust the shape of the firewall to fit both the fuselage and the cowling.


Getting the prop together was trouble. The resin spinner needed a new axle, and I had to file a notch in each prop blade to match the pegs on the spinner's arms.


The landing-gear struts seemed too bulky and too long. I drilled a hole through the upper wing and used five-minute epoxy to set the strut pegs into the holes. I filled and sanded the top of the strut flush with the wing. The plastic wheels in my kit were slightly misshapen so I used those from the resin set.


My sample's tail-wheel strut had no axle, so I made a new one from brass rod. Kit instructions show the inner gear doors hanging open, but all the pictures I researched had them closed, flush with the wing. I replaced the main and tail-wheel gear doors with pieces of sheet styrene to give a more scale appearance. All the interior surfaces in this area should be painted zinc chromate yellow.


Pavla provides one clear vacuum-formed canopy and two aft windows. It is easier to cut the aft panels from sheet acetate than try to trim the kit panels. The canopy is extremely thin and difficult to work with. I separated the windscreen from the canopy to get it to fit the forward fuselage better. Since the canopy was flimsy, masking and painting the frames would have been tricky, so I painted a piece of clear decal sheet olive drab, cut it into thin strips, and used them for the canopy framing.


Kit decals provide four options: two USAAC, one Chinese Air Force, or one Royal Australian Air Force. I selected the USAAC version that participated in the Carolina war games of 1941, with its distinctive red crosses on an olive drab and neutral gray paint scheme. The instruction sheet shows the star on top of the right wing; it should be on the left. I didn't use setting solution, and the decals settled fine without help.


I spent almost 40 hours on my model, mainly due to the problems encountered with the fit. Squadron/Signal's P-35 Mini In Action was my main reference. The finished product certainly has the look of the P-43, though reducing the length of the main gear struts would improve the stance. This kit is not for the beginner, but with work, experienced modelers can produce a neat replica of the Lancer.