Revell's new 1/32 scale
ASK 21 Glider

by Jay Laverty

Revell's 1/32 scale ASK 21 Glider will be available online from Squadron.com

Surely Not Me...

When Tony Cowell came into the office and showed me this test shot of a forthcoming Revell civil glider I was very surprised.

A 32nd civil glider from Revell?! Surely it was a wind up.

As I looked over the sprues in their innocuous clear plastic bag, it began to dawn on me what a stroke of genius this release was. While other companies are re-treading the same old airframes and others are desperately seeking that obscure Axis fighter or bomber that somehow hasn't been kitted yet, Revell go and do something that is so common it is out of the ordinary. You will find an ASK 21 at pretty much every Gliding Academy in Europe and the world for that matter, yet I had never heard of it until I saw this test shot.

It began to dawn on me that I should build it.

You know that voice that compels so many of us to build subjects we would never have dreamed of until we look in the box and that third eye envisions what we can do to those sprues of lifeless plastic. So I asked Tony that all to common question “ Are you going to build it?” half knowing the answer and hoping it would be “no.”

Sure enough I was walking home with the test shot that night.

Reference Images:

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A Bit of a Laugh 

I took the test shot up into my loft and scurried it away into a dark corner so that none of my modelling buddies would see me with a civil subject. Then I began to test fit it, and it was obvious right away this wouldn't take long to build. ( In fact this article is probably going to take longer towrite!)

Before I realised what had happened the cockpit was ready for primer. Fitting it to one side of the fuselage (having filled some rather inconveniently located ejector pin marks with dissolved putty) I primed it and had it painted and ready for washing in an evening.

As the test shot was minus the decal sheet I had to make do the old fashioned way and paint the instrumentation in myself. I did a fairly average to below average job and I sorely wished I had the kit decals from the beginning when I saw what Danny Coreman and Daco productions had done for Revell with the decal sheet.

Once the cockpit had been washed and matted down, the fuselage halves were joined ( after adding the wheels of course! ) And the model was very near completion.

Canopy masked, the wings were added, and this is when the plane really starts to impress. It just looks so cool with the massive wingspan and shows some very graceful lines.

 I then painted the entire model - wait for it - white.

Not a lot of finishing

And so the model sat, neglected and alone in the corner, waiting for me to build up the courage to spray some markings on it. Fortunately this never happened and the kit suddenly appeared in a delivery and I scampered with a set of decals from a “damaged” box.

As I mentioned earlier, the decals have been designed by Daco and really are superb. There is even an US Air Force option. But before you get your hopes up that one is white.

Being ever the patriot ( with indefinite leave to remain no less! ) I chose to use the RAF Malton based “Team Condor” markings as they tickled my fancy. Besides if you squint and look closely at the lo viz roundel on the fuselage, it almost looks like a Vulcan.

I used a smattering of a wash to finish the model, mounted it on the stand and took some pictures.

In case you hadn't figured it out by now, I heartily recommend this kit for a change of scenery if nothing else. I enjoyed building it, and it is definitely not a challenge so it will be a great kit for kids to build, and can easily be built to a high standard in a weekend.

My thanks go to Tony Cowell at Hannants for the test shot, and I also would like to thank Manfred Munch and the people at Schliecher for providing me with assistance and resources for the print article which will appear in SAMI soon.

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Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2005 by Jay Laverty
Page Created 24 May, 2005
Last Updated 24 May, 2005

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