L’Arsenal 1/400
Loire-Nieuport 40/401
Aircraft upgrade set
Reviewed by Felix Bustelo
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| Loire-Nieuport introduced the LN.40 as a single seat
carrier borne dive-bomber designed for hunting submarines. It was
dubbed the “French Stuka” because of its general role as a dive-bomber
and its inverted gull wings. The designation was later altered to LN.401for
the naval version and the French Air Force ordered 40 aircraft that did
not include folding wings, arrestor hook and other naval type features,
which was designated the LN.411. The Air Force subsequently cancelled
their order as they felt that the plane was too slow and too unwieldy for
modern combat. The LN.411’s were transferred to the Navy, who used
them for land based ground attack missions. The French carrier Bearn
carried Escadrille AB2, which was comprised of LN.401’s.
Their first combat was on 19 May 1940 in which ten of the twenty attacking
aircraft were shot down. Several other sorties were flown over the remainder
of the war. After the fall of France, the 15 remaining aircraft flew to
North Africa and were used by the Vichy Air Force. With the Germans over-running
the factory, production ceased and was never re-instated. |
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| The Loire-Nieuport LN.40/401 is another addition to the
L’Arsenal line of 1/400 scale resin and photoetch aircraft. Like
most of the other packets, you are provided with enough parts to build
a total of five LN.40/401’s. The fuselage and wings are cast as a
single part. Two sprues of 5 main landing gear wheels are done in
resin. The casting is very well done, with a great level of detail.
Casting film needs to be trimmed off of the main aircraft parts and some
minor sanding and clean up is required. The small photoetch set provides
three-bladed propellers, the main landing gear struts, the tail landing
gear and the tail planes and finlets. The main landing gear assemblies
are a combination of the photoetch struts and the resin wheels. Locator
holes are present on the underside for placement of the struts. |
Click images
to enlarge |
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| The assembly instructions are provided on a small insert
in the ziplock bag in which the parts are packaged. The brief instructions
are written in French but the blowup diagram clearly shows the placement
of the photoetch and resin parts. French roundels and markings are available
on a separate decal sheet (Item # AC 400-08). |
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 L’Arsenal’s
Loire-Nieuport LN.40/401 set will be included as a bonus in the first 300
kits sold of their forthcoming Bearn aircraft carrier, but will be available
separately as well so you can model your Bearn as he appeared in 1939.
I would like to extend my thanks to Jacques Druel for providing this review
sample. Click the logo on the right to visit their website. |
