RS Models – 92296 – Airspeed Envoy “Lynx engine”

Description:

Unassembled plastic model kit in 1/72 scale of a British Airspeed AS.6 Envoy, a twin-engined light transport aircraft produced between 1934 and 1939 with around 54 units built. Despite the low number of units produced no less than 8 different engines where used in different variants of this aircraft, most of them produced in very low numbers, being the Armstrong Siddeley Cheetah IX engine and 7 seats configuration the main variant of the aircraft with roughly half of the total units produced in this configuration.

Reissue of 2013 RS Models kit for the same subject updated with a new decal sheet. Kit include resin parts (for the Lynx engines) and PE parts.

Decal sheet include 4 marking, with a selection of two crashed Airspeed Envoy. Include a Spanish Civil War marking, for General Mola last flight, an Airspeed Envoy crashed in 3 June 1937. Mola was one of the three leaders of the Nationalist coup of July 1936 that started the Civil War and usually assumed as the chief planner among the plotters. His death left alone Franco ahead of the Nationalist side and ultimately ruling in Spain from 1939 to 1975 as a dictator. Sabotage never was proven in the crash of Mola’s aircraft but has been a subject of controversy in the rise of Franco as main leader of the Nationalist movement.

The second crashed marking is for Charles Ulm disappeared Cheetah-powered Envoy while flying the Pacific route between Oakland and Honolulu in December 1934. This Airspeed Envoy is usually reported as a Cheetah engines one rather than Lynxs.

The other two marking belong to G-ADCA serial number, firstly flying for the Southsea and IoW Aviation Ltd. regional airliner in 1935 and later sold to Japan and flight as J-BDEO.

Markings:

• G-ADCA, Portsmouth, Southsea and IoW Aviation Ltd., 1935
• J-BDEO, ex G-ADCA, Japan Air Transport, 1936
• 41-1, Spanish Nationalist, General Mola personal Aircraft, 1936
• VH-UXY, ex. G-ACTJ, Charles T. P. Ulm, J. L. SKilling, 1934