Avia B.534
Early Series & Late Series
Quattro Combo

Eduard, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Mark Davies

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

The Avia Company was a leading supplier of military aircraft to the Czechoslovak Air Force as well as various export customers. It had designed a long line of fighter types, and the B.34 that was to lead to the 534 series, first flew in 1932 using a licence-built Hispano-Suiza V-12 of 650hp. Its designer was Ing Novotny who had spent time in Britain with Hawker. This experience was put to use with construction methods that followed Hawker practice, although the chin radiator installation was somewhat ungainly compared to the sleek lines of the Hawker Fury it otherwise resembled.

The B.34 was a bit of a stopgap design, and developments with other engines, including a radial, were tested (B.134 & B.234) without being adopted for production. Meanwhile, the licence-production of the latest and more powerful Hispano Suiza 12-Ydr of 860hp meant that Avia could adopt this engine and produce a state of the art biplane fighter. It was known as the B.534 and first flew in September 1933.
Various changes were made over the life of the design, and without giving a definitive list these included some of the following:

• A change from two fuselage and two wing guns to just two fuselage guns in the serie I because the wing guns apparently did not provide accurate enough fire (presumably due to flexing of their mounts under recoil or when pulling G). Then four fuselage guns were adopted for the serie II onwards.

• The serie III onwards also had a single round air intake under the nose replacing the earlier series’ twin intakes.

• The use of wheel spats on serie III & IV aircraft (but often removed in service due to clogging)

• The serie IV’s adoption of metal propellers.

• The second prototype’s canopy was dropped in favour of open cockpits on the early series aircraft, only for a different style of closed canopy to be readopted in the serie IV. A bubble-style canopy was also developed as a retrofit option for open cockpit series aircraft, but was rarely used.

• All serie IV aircraft abandoned a tail-skid in favour of a tail-wheel, and this was retrofitted to some earlier series machines.

• Serie IV machines were equipped for night flying and fitted with navigation lights.

The B.534 did not to see combat service with the Czechoslovak Air Force, but a few would serve with the First Slovak Republic that had become a puppet state of Nazi Germany following the Nazi invasion and division of Czechoslovakia. (Having already occupied the Sudetenland in 1938, Germany renamed the remaining Czech lands as the Protectorate of Bohemia & Moravia.) In fact, Germany and Bulgaria were to be the largest operators of the B.534, although a few aircraft were also acquired by a number of other countries including Greece (two bought privately and gifted to the Greek government), Croatia, Romania, Hungary and apparently the Soviet Union.

The Contents

In each case the contents come in a side-opening box with the four sprues enclosed in a resealable cellophane bag; as are the instructions, decals and masks in a similar but smaller bag, whilst each clear sprue comes in a zip-lock polythene bag. The boxes feature attractive artwork on their front and markings option profiles on their rear.

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The instruction booklets consist of 16 glossy colour printed A5 pages, with four-view colours & markings guides. They feature English and Czech text, include a parts map, and are of excellent quality. The kits’ instructions can be viewed or downloaded as a PDF by clicking on their part number here; 4451 and 4452.

It is soon apparent that there are quite a few surplus parts in both kits across eight main sprues, of which there are seven different styles, as the parts maps indicate...

The two boxings share a common clear sprue (three for 4451 and four for 4452), whilst the eight main sprues are identical across the two boxings but for seven different styles of fuselage halves:

• 4451, the early series boxing, provides one I-series, one II-series, one III-series with an open cockpit, and one III-series with a fully enclosed bubble canopy.

• 4452, the late series boxing, provides four IV-series machines, one is unarmed and lacking gun blast troughs and breech blisters on the fuselage sides, two feature two gun-troughs and large breech blisters per side, and one has single gun troughs and small breech blisters each side.

Each boxing has windscreen, canopy and wheel masks sufficient to finish four models. Unlike Eduard’s 1/72 B.534 kits, the 1/144 kits do not include masks for the upper surface colour wrap-around on the wings and tail surfaces, presumably as an economy in hitting a price-point, as there seems no technical reason for their absence.

The Kits

Eduard’s instructions are very nicely printed and extremely clear and easy to follow. Colour call-outs are cross-referenced to the Gunze Aqueous (acrylic) and Mr. Color (lacquer) paint ranges. They also include a rigging diagram for the masochistic!

Each boxing has either three or four variants covered, so careful checking is necessary to ensure that the correct assembly sequence is followed. This mainly applies to fuselage style, propeller choice, spatted or uncovered wheels, tail-wheel or skid, canopy style or windscreen, headrest style, bombs, or drop-tanks/cluster-bombs.

The moulding of the airframe parts is simply superb; very clean and crisp, with commendably narrow sprue gates and thoughtfully placed ejector pins. Transparencies are as thin as practicable and clear.

The detail in some areas is exquisite for the scale, with surface detail that is most realistic when compared to the original aircraft.

Cockpit detail is very good for this small scale, where some kits lack any at all. There is a floor with integral seat and rudder pedals, a control column, and instrument panel with a decal providing for the dials. Both boxings also have decals for seat harnesses, but this is only mentioned in the instructions for 4452, the late series.

The remaining main airframe parts are conventional for a biplane kit. The fabric surface detail captures the original’s very prominent rib tapes.

Small bombs and what are either drop-tanks of cluster-bombs provide payload choices for the markings options to which they apply.

Quality has become synonymous with the Eduard brand-name, and this holds true for every aspect of these kits. Aside from the obvious challenges of building biplanes in this scale, and one IV-series Slovak option that needs the sliding portion of the canopy cut out, I anticipate assembly to be problem free.

For the detail obsessed there is a PE detail set available as a separate item, one set being required per model. Instructions for this set, which includes rigging, can be viewed by clicking here.

Marking Options

The options for box 4451 B.534 Early Series are:

• I-series, 40th Fighter Squadron, Air Regiment 4, Hradec Kralove Air Base, Czechoslovakia, 1937;

• II-series, flown by Ladislav Svetlik, 38th Fighter Squadron, Air Regiment 3, Vajnory Air Base, Czechoslovakia, 1937

• III-series, 34th Fighter Squadron, Air Regiment 4, Hradec Kralove Air Base, August, 1937;

• III-series, Slovak Air Force, Squadron 13, Piestany air base, January, 1940;

• III-series, JFS 4, Furth-Herzogenaurach, German, Summer, 1942; and

• III-series, FFS A/B 115, Wels Air Base, Austria, 1939-1941.

Late Series. Kit No. 4452

The options for box 4452 B.534 Late Series, all are IV-series and have twin gun-troughs with large blisters on the fuselage sides except where noted in brackets:

• 4th International Aviation Meeting, Zurich, Switzerland, 1937 (no gun troughs or blisters);

• Air Regiment 4, 34th Squadron, Hradec Kralove air base, Czechoslovakia, summer, 1937;

• Gendarme aviation patrol, Hradec Kralove air base, Czechoslovakia, summer, 1937;

• Combined Squadron, Tri Duby airfield, Slovakia, September-October 1944;

• 7./LLG 1, Eastern Front, winter, 1942/43;

• 112th Fighter Squadron, Sofia-Bozhuriste air base, Bulgaria, early 1941;

• Air Regiment 4, Pargue-Kbely air base, Czechoslovakia, March 1939 (single gun-trough and small blister); and

• c/n 516, I./JGr Drontheim, Grove air base, Denmark, 1941 (single gun-trough and small blister).

The decals for both boxings are excellent quality.

Nazi swastikas are provided as two-part decals on all sheets, with complete swastikas included in a corner that can be cut off for markets that do not permit its display.

Both boxings are superb examples of the 1/144 scale kit maker’s art, and are probably the best fighter-sized kits in this scale I can recall reviewing. Czech manufacturers always seem to lift the bar where the B.534 is concerned, and Even Eduard has surpassed its own previous 122 efforts with these kits.

Every aspect of both boxings is top quality, leading to models that should be true gems with careful assembly and painting. I highly recommend both early and late series boxings.

Thanks to Eduard for the sample

Review Text Copyright © 2016 by Mark Davies
Page Created 5 May, 2016
Last updated 5 May, 2016

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