P-51D Mustang (oz15838)

 

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User comments

It's nice to watch the Comet collection growing. Thank you for sharing the plans and the box art
Hubert - 10/02/2025
Hubert, I whole heartedly agree with you. I have aways liked Comet kits because they didn't use as much vacuumed formed parts as Guillows and others. I could never get the vacuumed formed parts to fit and look correct. I could with some curving and sanding get balsa wood parts to fit and look good.
RogerB - 10/02/2025
Comet didn't used decals too. Insignas was printed on rear gummed paper, like post stamp.
The only convincing unvacuformed canopy was the one of FW 190 I made in the 70's. I remember in the box was included a big metal dowel for nose weight, but the X serie, due to the cardboard tube and full formers, are very heavy flying bricks.
pit - 11/02/2025
I recall these kits were reviewed by Eric Coates in Aeromodeller Dec 1973. He built the Me109, Terry Manley the Spitfire and Dave Clarkson the Zero. They weren't impressed - far too heavy. Eric converted the Me for a Frog 50 but the back end snapped off at the end of the tube. Oh, and the unsupported LE pulled in.
bill dennis - 11/02/2025
True that, Pit. Each had their pluses and minuses. Most of those kit manufactures didn't have the lightest wood and the designs didn't make for a light flying model either. The kits had to be made for the lowest common denotator. One thing I did liked about Guillows and few others was they had the ribs and formers printed on the plans (at least most of the time) which you could at least transfer them to lighter wood and trim some of the weight off. Comet, not so much. It was difficult to use the die cut wood they had and transfer it to lighter wood. At the time I think I enjoyed building them more than flying them (and still do). But then again that might be because they didn't fly that well straight out of the box.
RogerB - 11/02/2025
Since I was a boy I built a lot of rubber scale from Sterling, Guillows, Veron and Comet. Comet was made for flying, the others permit only a simple glide under rubber. Those were conceived to be built by unexperienced boys, so had full formers, a lot of stringers and spars, very heavy tail, vacuformed light nose that loose the prop incidence at the first heavy landing. The structures were so heavy to facilitate the construction and handling by the boys, that at least had a static model, and could complete the kit. Original Comet kits were made of stick an light semi formers, the parts are inked on balsa and hand cutted one by one. Too light and difficult to handle without crunching for a boy, but decent flyiers.
With the X-Serie Comet wanted to fill the gap (and the weight) with Sterling and Guillows kits, but saving (as usual) money on vacuformed parts and decals.
Pit - 11/02/2025
Have moved the review pages (briefly added on this page here) across to the Bf109 page, see Messerschmitt Bf109E (oz15468) as it sits there better. The 109 is the main subject of the review. Sorry for the confusion.
SteveWMD - 12/02/2025
These scale models by Guillows, Comet and others are a nice way to learn how to make a balsa scale model. Usually these companies had very well drawn plans and the models did fly as long as you made them really light by sanding balsa sheets up to 1 mm. thick, use very little dope and decoration, use more rubber and perhaps a better propeller. But they are mostly aimed to the market of people who want a scale flying model that fly thus introducing many people to real aeromodelling. Also for people who enjoy much more building than flying since some of these kits are very accurate as compared to the full size counterpart. Guillows will turn 100 next year still selling good numbers of their extremely attractive scale rubber powered flying airplanes. If nobody would want them Guillows wouldn't be in business after a century of kit manufacturing and oddly enough at the same place in Wakefield Mass. in the USA in which the late Paul W. Guillows started his business.
I myself also make some rubber scale kits for selling here in Colombia and I sell them also to educational institutions such as schools and universities that teach aeronautical engineering. My web page is www.aeromodelosbritannia.com
Best wishes. EDUARDO
Eduardo - 12/02/2025
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