Extra 300L / 330LC

Brengun, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Brett Green

The Extra 300 is a fully aerobatic two seat light plane designed and built in Germany by Walter Extra and the 330LC is a more powerful version. They have been in production since the late 1980s and have been sold all over the world, including military operators such as Jordan, Malaysia and Chile for their aerobatic teams. The French have used them as well.

It has a welded steel fuselage covered in Aluminium and fabric with carbon composite wings. Maximum safe speed is around 400kph. Many have ended up in private usage and it has an excellent safety record. It appears that well over 700 aircraft have been built but some of these are the 200 or other versions.

(Info from Wikipedia and Airport-Data.com).

How nice to see one in kit form at last from the Czech manufacturer Brengun who has made a reputation producing well-detailed and engineered kits of slightly out-of-the-ordinary aircraft. It comes in the usual flimsy Brengun end-opening box with a nice CAD rendition of the American N129SJ on the top and colour details of the three decal choices underneath.

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Inside is a re-sealable clear bag containing two sprues, a loose clear canopy (tut tut Brengun!), a 100x100mm decal sheet for the three examples and larger than usual ( for Brengun) instruction sheet printed on both sides, partly in colour. No resin or PE - more on that later. 

The difference between the 300 and the 330 is catered for by instructions to remove moulded grills on each fuselage half for the 300, leaving them in place for the 330. Simples!

Both sprues are very nicely moulded and only a couple of areas will need some flash removed while there are some very fine detailed past and internal structure for the cockpit is moulded into the fuselage sides. The large sprue contains the fuselage and all details, while the smaller one caters for the flying surfaces.

Construction begins with a number of sub-assemblies for the seats ( for which there are no seatbelts), instrument panel, floor (including pedals), propeller and undercarriage legs. These are then combined with the fuselage halves and a few more details are added when this is done. These include some very small parts which will require a bit of care. Colours are called out in all stages by name alone - no FS number or manufacturer is mentioned.

The two-piece wings and single stabilisers are next - all with finely moulded surface detail, although there is not much to see as these aerobatic aircraft are very smooth. Then the undercarriage, which I see as an area for special care as the fuselage fairings, curved legs and spats will need careful alignment to avoid a wing-down look. Exhausts, tail skid and aileron controls finish up the airframe. Finally the single piece canopy is added and if you want to leave it open, then it is hinged on the starboard edge. This is bit cloudy and what a shame to see it floating loose inside the bag, free to get scratched at every move. See later for a vac formed replacement.

Colour instructions are on the box rear, for one, with two more on the instruction sheet - these are nice 4-views for each choice, but do suffer from lack of a clear explanation of the precise shade of red or blue needed. Neither is there any hint as to what colour the chestnut-tinted underside of SP-TLS (a 330LC) is meant to be, although the one finished in the scheme on the website is the same red on the fuselage!. Similarly, the blue for the US version seems to change colour from one part of the drawing to another although the box lid has it all one colour. Perhaps there has been an issue with printer ink, but I’ll leave you to sort it out!!

And now for the PE issue, or rather lack of.  All these aircraft generally have a fine wire device trailing each wingtip and a small one going forward, as illustrated on the box top. I assume this is something to help alignment during aerobatics. These and the seatbelts would have been an ideal opportunity to use PE and in fact Brengun have produced such a set as a separate product ( BRL72200). I would suggest this is almost a necessity if you are building an aerobatic example.

As well, Brengun have produced a vacform canopy (BRL72205) and a masking set (BRL72202) for the kit as well.

It would be great for them to do a ‘Profipack’ version of their kits with all the accessories included, although cost could be the limitation.

Marking Options

Decals are nicely printed and in register.

The three decal choices are :

• SP-TLS of Warter Aviation , an Extra 330LC in a spectacular silver, red, white and unknown brown scheme which will test your masking skills as only the silver stripes, codes and company names are provided as decals,

• N129SJ a 300L in a nice silver, white and unspecified blue scheme, again an interesting masking job, and

• D-EXAF a 330LC in another masking challenge of red and white with the silver shapes provided as decals.

• All will look simply great if well executed.

I recommend this kit to anyone with an interest in aerobatic planes as there are now a number of different ones available from companies such as Brengun, AZ and Amodel.

Thanks to Brengun for the sample

Text Copyright © 2020 by Graham Carter
Images Copyright © 2020 by Brett Green
Page Created 14 April, 2020
Last updated 4 May, 2020

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