TOKO 1:72 PFALZ D.XII
Reviewer: Gavin Reed (rec.models.scale)
The Pfalz D.XII was a two-bay biplane of wooden construction with a plywood-covered fuselage, fabric-covered wings and fixed tailskid landing gear. The first example flew in early 1918 and the prototypes flew with different engines supplied by Benz, BMW & Mercedes, in the second German fighter competition held in May/June 1918. Pilots compared the Pfalz D.XII to the Fokker D.VII and were in favour of the Pfalz, which was subsequently ordered into production. The aircraft was used by some front-line pilots before the end of the First World War came and by which time some 200 were built.
Nice box artwork and colour charts greet the Modeller's eye on scrutinising the kit's cover and the pleasing aspect does not stop there, because opening the box reveals two sprues of lovely quality molded parts in a light grey colour. There's about 30-35 parts in all and the detail is very good with control surfaces finely etched. You also get a nicely detailed cockpit and separate engine components to enhance the kit even more.
The instructions are set out on a nice little fold-out booklet with a logical number of straightforward assembly steps. The sheet also contains history notes, sprue diagram to show where the parts are located and backup colour scheme notations to complement the full colour diagram on the underside of the box. Colour suggestions for individual parts is also catered for in the instruction sheet, most notably engine and cockpit sections.
Construction begins in the cockpit and you are provided with seat, floor, rudder, instrument panel and a nicely molded seat which represents the unique Pfalz version quite accurately. The engine goes together well and sits snugly inside the fuselage halves. This whole assembly is then mounted onto the lower wing and everything fits very well. Painting of the lower wing, upper wing and fuselage sections was undertaken at this point before attaching the upper wing and then rigging the model with invisible thread. The inner struts need to be slightly bent when attaching to the model. The rest of the assembly went together without incident and very minor filling was only needed.
Two options are catered for by the kit, one with fairly standard German camouflage of Dark Green, Medium Green, Light Green and Purple on the fuselage and lozenge for the wings. Lozenge decals are supplied in the kit but as seems to be the norm with Toko, there always is some gripe with the lozenge decals, and in this case the underside set has been supplied for upper and lower surfaces! The second option is for Lieutenant G.Klein's machine from 1918. The scheme for this aircraft is overall Light Grey highlighted by Insignia Yellow tailfin, tailplanes, nose, struts and a stripe along the fuselage. The decals are excellent in register and there are plenty of them in the kit for a WW1 aircraft. However, one decal that shows a serial number like register is stated in the instructions to be applied to both aircraft, which must be incorrect. I chose Lt.Klein's machine to finish off my model and found the decals applied easily and conformed very well. However, I decided not to apply the decals to the struts as they were larger than the thickness of the struts! Overall the decals are excellent.
Toko are certainly proving to be one of the masters of the WW1 genre and there has been enough compliments of late flying around about this company that I won't bore you again. But what I will say is that this kit is excellent, it goes together very well and perhaps minus the rigging, even a novice should be able to get a good finish. Compared to reference sources the kit is accurate and measures to scale very well (slightly under scale as far as the span is concerned). The small gripes above are really the only downsides to this kit and they are more related to after the kit has been built anyway. I would certainly have no qualms in giving this kit a high recommendation.
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