Some six years after AZ's kit of the MB 5 first appeared I thought I'd build it, inspired by the neat article on Martin-Baker aircraft in the latest issue of Aerojournal magazine (issue no. 91). Aside from this there is good reference info in Air International, Vol. 16/2 (February 1979) and 'Wings of Fame', Vol. 9, 1997 which covers the whole MB fighter range and has some useful shots.
On with the build! Aside from the rear cockpit bulkhead, the interior parts were an OK fit. The instrument panel features nice raised detail that would benefit from careful painting and dry brushing to lift out the detail. Then the fun began! The fuselage halves were of different sizes. I lined up the upper surfaces and was left with a depression ahead of the radiator on the lower surface. The nose intake is 'solid' so was drilled open.
The kit is 'short-run limited technology' - and pretty poor! It goes together like the 1958 vintage Airfix DH 88 Comet (see elsewhere on this blog) ie with great difficulty! To sum up the kit gets a poor 2 out 10 from me and is easily a contender in the 'worst scale model kit ever' Top 10, a subject we dealt with in a previous blog post (see link below). I certainly wouldn't build another. Short run shouldn't mean unbuildable and inaccurate- it certainly doesn't with other kit producers (RS Models for example). Okay, I managed to finish it - always a positive point - but really, I'm not sure why I bothered. Even now I still think the overall shape is 'wrong'.