1:72 de Havilland Dove & Devon Collection

A twin-engine successor to the prewar machines

The DH.104 was the first British postwar transport aircraft to make it big. It offered an enclosed cabin for eight to eleven passengers, retractable nose gear and a pair of Gipsy Queen inline engines. It sold all over the world and became an everyday machine for short routes, air taxi flights and company transport. The military version for the Royal Air Force was given a name of its own, Devon, and the naval equivalent Sea Devon.

Six machines from five countries

The sheet is remarkable for its spread. Side by side stand an aircraft of the Pakistan Air Force from Karachi in 1958, a naval Sea Devon C.20 from Yeovilton in 1970, a machine of the Ethiopian Air Force from 1963, a Devon C.2 of a British squadron from Wyton in 1980, an aircraft of the Argentine Air Force from the Buenos Aires base of El Palomar in 1963 and finally a civil airframe of a German charter firm from Düsseldorf in the summer of 1966.

Military gray against civil gloss

The difference between the military and the civil subjects matters for the build as well. Military airframes wore flat, subdued finishes with national markings and a serial number, whereas the civil machine had a polished metal surface and colored lines along the windows. The choice of subject thus determines the whole painting procedure, not merely the placement of the markings.

A note on the build

The flat surfaces of this type's fuselage are rewarding for decals, but around the windows and doors there are a great many small frames. A softener helps more there than pressure. The registration letters of the civil machine are long and run across the whole wing, so it is better to have a really smooth gloss underneath them.