Avrocar VZ-9 What-If?

Brengun, 1/144 scale

Reviewed by Mark Davies

Eduard's 1/72 Avia B.534 IV serie Weekend Edition is available online from Squadron.com

The Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar was a VTOL aircraft developed by Avro Aircraft Ltd. (Canada) as part of a secret U.S. military project carried out in the early years of the Cold War. The Avrocar intended to exploit the Coanda effect to provide lift and thrust from a single "turborotor" blowing exhaust out the rim of the disk-shaped aircraft to provide anticipated VTOL-like performance. In the air, it would have resembled a flying saucer.

Originally designed as a fighter-like aircraft capable of very high speeds and altitudes, the project was repeatedly scaled back over time and the U.S. Air Force eventually abandoned it. Development was then taken up by the U.S. Army for a tactical combat aircraft requirement, a sort of high-performance helicopter. In flight testing, the Avrocar proved to have unresolved thrust and stability problems that limited it to a degraded, low-performance flight envelope; subsequently, the project was cancelled in September 1961.

Source: Wikipedia

The kit comes in a small end-opening box with a photo of the finished model on the front. The instructions have a parts map and use a diagrammatic format that is easy to follow, and have generic colour call-outs in English. The resin parts and vac-formed canopies come enclosed in a cellophane bag, as do the decal sheet and PE fret in another bag. All of the parts are of very good quality.

Very little assembly is required, as is evident from the assembly instructions shown below:

Any one of four rather similar what-if versions can be built, although the US Army and USMC versions appear to be armed with either a big bazooka or recoilless gun:

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Kits do not come much simpler than this one. The only challenges I can see are cutting out the small vac-form canopies and dealing with some of the very small PE parts. The levels of detail are very good for the scale, and a delightful little model should result. Here is an image from Brengun’s website of a completed example:

This simple kit caters to those who like unusual subjects or who need an easy project to relax over. The components are to Brengun’s usual high standard, and a very nice model should result. It should be a nice quick build - Highly recommended.

Thanks to Brengun for the review sample.

Review Text Copyright © 2016 by Mark Davies
Page Created 14 February, 2016
Last updated 14 February, 2016

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