Matchbox – PK-402 (40402) – Wellington Mk.X/Mk.XIV

Description:

Unassembled plastic model kit in 1/72 scale of a British WWII medium bomber Vickers Wellington, famous by its geodetic airframe fuselage, one of the main bombers of the RAF till 1943, when was superseded by thee four engined heavy bombers, and then, used mostly as anti-submarine and maritime patrol.

Matchbox tooled its Wellington kit in 1976, and that time there was several other options, but tooled in the 60s and harder to assemble for novices. This kit preserved its code number and content, even decals, all its life. Though in the early releases, the front both cover didn’t avice it, an specific nose part with the radar radome of the Mk.XIV version. The last boxes issued from 1992 ahead changed the box art and title including the Mk.XIV variant.

The comments about the kit are the same to other Matchbox kits, the spartan interior detail, the too engraved panel lines and for a big plane as the Wellington with large parts of clear plastic, this parts distort the view having a magnifying effect. Depend on the year of the kit, probably those from Chinese production are reported with some flash in one of the sprues.

In the good points of the kit we found it’s easy to build and achieved a decent representation of the geodetic construction of the plane, especially in the wings.

The kit included a decal sheet with three markings, two for the Mk.X bomber version, including the aircraft depicted in the box art, the HE239 of No.428 Sqn. RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force), which lost the rear gunner and turret but flew back home, a marking from the 300th (Polish) RAF Squadron and one marking for the Mk.XIV of the RAF Costal Command based in Gibraltar. They all dated 1943.

Same kit with new decals was released one time by Revell, in 2002, under code number 04601.

Nowadays there are much better depictions of the Vickers Wellington in 1/72 scale (with the exception of the Eastern Express which is the old FROG kit, so old as this Matchbox one), the MPM Production kit (issued at some point also by Italeri, Revell or Special Hobby) is considered the finest together with the latest tools by Airfix. The Trumpeter kits are good enough too and easier to build.