That's a handsome aircraft, I'm glad you shared about the build. When I saw the holes in the fuselage for the tail surfaces I thought that there might be issues with how it went together.
A.T. stood for Advanced Trainer, and it certainly was that. Purposely made to be very tricky and unforgiving to fly. It was to give student pilots a taste of flying high performance multi-engine types such as the B-26 Marauder and Douglas A-26 Invader. Students either loved it and found it exhilarating, or they hated it. It certainly weeded out those that didn't have the aptitude. Non were made available as surplus after the war for civilian use because of the tricky flying characteristics. Very glad to see you reviewing this unusual type, young Matthew. Hope you get round to a build one day.
I am a sucker for an unusual but cool design - I have this one in my stash. The tooling quality looks good but the Dora Wings kits do need a fair amount of experience to build well. They are not exactly difficult but the placement and fit of the parts needs careful attention. Well worth the effort though as they are well made and are nicely detailed. I have built both versions of the Curtiss Wright CW-21 single engined fighters that Dora Wings have in their range, both look great, very pleased. Dora Wings have a very intriguing range of lesser known but interesting subjects, well worth a look. Not badly priced either.
Just a thought regarding the centre red dots. Assuming you can get the right size, maybe use a hole punch in the centre of the decal, paint the centre of the area where the decal is to go in red, then place the decal, so even if the placement is slightly off the centre dot will still be red :) OK this only came up today but the detail says it was posted a month ago.
I just read this and think it’s a really great solution, provided the excess red doesn’t show through the decal placed over it but only through the hole 👍🫡
It seems a liitle bit Airfix. Great subject, great decals suffers from being unnecessarily complex in areas it shouldn't. I'm speaking from a point of view of having just built the 1/48 Chipmunk. Reasonable fit, good detail, but the canopy nearly caused me to see if it would actually fly!
I have a 2024 Dora Wings tool in the stash. Maybe it should jump the queue so I can see if they have improved- the Gee Bees certainly had no issues, but another test may be in order.
American comedian George Gobel was an instructor on the AT-9. He spoke about his wartime experience on the Johhny Carson show in 1977, and it's hilarious: th-cam.com/video/efHVcgUajtA/w-d-xo.html
For all of the fit issues you had with the kit, you still built it up into a beautiful model. I am very impressed.
Thank you very much!
My thoughts exactly.
That's a handsome aircraft, I'm glad you shared about the build. When I saw the holes in the fuselage for the tail surfaces I thought that there might be issues with how it went together.
It does go together, but it takes quite a bit of work
A.T. stood for Advanced Trainer, and it certainly was that. Purposely made to be very tricky and unforgiving to fly. It was to give student pilots a taste of flying high performance multi-engine types such as the B-26 Marauder and Douglas A-26 Invader. Students either loved it and found it exhilarating, or they hated it. It certainly weeded out those that didn't have the aptitude. Non were made available as surplus after the war for civilian use because of the tricky flying characteristics.
Very glad to see you reviewing this unusual type, young Matthew. Hope you get round to a build one day.
There are build notes on how I found this kit at the end where I add some extra thoughts discussing the build of the model
Ah, I sent my original comment before the end of the video. Echoing another person's comment, however:
You've done a very nice job.
I am a sucker for an unusual but cool design - I have this one in my stash. The tooling quality looks good but the Dora Wings kits do need a fair amount of experience to build well. They are not exactly difficult but the placement and fit of the parts needs careful attention. Well worth the effort though as they are well made and are nicely detailed. I have built both versions of the Curtiss Wright CW-21 single engined fighters that Dora Wings have in their range, both look great, very pleased. Dora Wings have a very intriguing range of lesser known but interesting subjects, well worth a look. Not badly priced either.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Just a thought regarding the centre red dots. Assuming you can get the right size, maybe use a hole punch in the centre of the decal, paint the centre of the area where the decal is to go in red, then place the decal, so even if the placement is slightly off the centre dot will still be red :)
OK this only came up today but the detail says it was posted a month ago.
That is a really interesting idea!
I just read this and think it’s a really great solution, provided the excess red doesn’t show through the decal placed over it but only through the hole 👍🫡
It seems a liitle bit Airfix. Great subject, great decals suffers from being unnecessarily complex in areas it shouldn't. I'm speaking from a point of view of having just built the 1/48 Chipmunk. Reasonable fit, good detail, but the canopy nearly caused me to see if it would actually fly!
I have a 2024 Dora Wings tool in the stash. Maybe it should jump the queue so I can see if they have improved- the Gee Bees certainly had no issues, but another test may be in order.
I've got their Vanguard to do, and it looks so much better than this one
American comedian George Gobel was an instructor on the AT-9. He spoke about his wartime experience on the Johhny Carson show in 1977, and it's hilarious: th-cam.com/video/efHVcgUajtA/w-d-xo.html
thanks for sharing!