Gull By Night

Fulmar Mk II Nightfighter.

- Kryzsztof Struzyna

One day I realized that I didn’t have any Fleet air arm aircraft on my shelves so after a quick browse in a shop nearby I chose the Fulmar night fighter boxing kitted by Czech manufacturer MPM. additionally I bought a set of paints for British aircraft from Gunze.

At first sight the kit makes a good impression with nicely engraved panel lines, not so typical for a short run production. I was surprised by the size of this aircraft, as it is much larger than the Spitfires or Hurricanes we more often build. The box includes a small etched fret that allows you to upgrade some of the most essential cockpit elements, such as the instrument panel, compass and seatbelts, as well as details for the oil cooler and the radar array.

After further examination of the MPM kit it becomes apparent that with a little extra effort you can build quite a nice miniature of the somewhat clumsy looking Fulmar. The main problems with this kit are the slightly coarse canopy, thick wing trailing edges and very chunky fuselage sides. unfortunately available documentation on the aircraft is very limited. I found two publications; 4+ Publication’s book and Warpaint No. 41 Fairey Fulmar by Geoffrey Bussy. The first one is very helpful because it contains photos of the only surviving Fulmar located in the Fleet air arm Museum at RNAS  Yeovilton. additional good quality photos can be found on the Internet as well. There are a lot of pictures of the gear bays and wing folding mechanism, useful for someone who wants to detail these from scratch. In the Warpaint title you can find riveting schemes which, as it turned out later, are not entirely correct.