Academy's fine 1/72 scale MS.500 Criquet. The kit is crisply engraved, with a nice convincing simulated surface where the wings and fuselage were covered with fabric on the real airplane. The cockpit has a seat, stick, instrument panel with raised detals, and a stool for the observer in the back. There are intricate seperate parts for the leading edge slats that allowed this plane to fly so slowly without stalling that it could land to a stop in 20 feet in the hands of an experienced pilot.The greenhouse canopy looks intimidating on the sprues because there are so many panels one has to glue together, but it is not all that difficult however, since they fit perfectly. The nose comes as a vertically seperated part which eliminates having to sand and fill any seams. Again, fit is perfect. The two fuselage halves fit nearly perfectly. There's really only one major gripe I had with this kit: the main wing struts are too long; glueing them on per the instructions will result in the wing having a very noticable dihedral, which is totally wrong. On the real Criquet the main wings were level. You will need to shorten the main wing struts about 2 mm to correct it. Dry-fit before you commit.
The landing gear and wing struts are very complex and involve careful handling, but they look very nice when done. Being the goof I am sometimes, I glued on the main gear struts backwards! Take care when assembling. Lucky for me it isn't all that noticable. As far as I could tell after looking at images no real modification was needed for a VNAF Criquet. One has to add the two little struts bracing the tail-wheel, as they are not included in the kit. I made mine from stretched sprue. I left off the antenna on top of the canopy, and the one below the wing, since they showed in none of the photos I have seen.
The cockpit was painted with Humbrol 65, as it is a very close match to the desired RLM 02 color on the real airplane. I painted the entire model with Tamiya XF-61 Dark Green after masking the canopy with Tamiya masking tape (great stuff). Masking is not that big a deal since the windows have raised edges. These finely done edges make it easy to burnish the masking tape down with a toothpick and they practically guide the blade when you cut the tape.
The markings on my model are of an MS.500 belonging to the Centtre Instruction Air VietNam at Nha Trang, late in 1955, after the well-known yellow-red circle national insignia had been replaced by the USAF-style star and bars. I painted the fuel tanks in the wings aluminum on the upper side of the wing, as is evident in some photos. This was probably done to reflect more solar heat than dark green would have done, so the tanks would not heat up too much. The Vietnamese flags on the vertical stabilizers were airbrushed on to a clear decal sheet and when sealed and dried cut to the correct size. The star-and-bars came from Carpena’s VNAF sheet. They are somewhat thick and need several applications of Microset and Microsol to snuggle down, especially on the simulated fabric-covered areas. In the end, it worked out. I didn't use any of the kit decals for a German or French Storch / Criquet, but they were in register and looked quite usable. This is a cheap kit, with great fit and accurate to boot. I highly recommend it to both beginners and experienced modellers. There are also 1/72 MS.500 / Fi-156 scale kits from Heller and Smer (the latter being a repop of this academy kit, I believe). I haven't built those yet, but the Academy will certainly not disappoint you. Great bang for the buck.
