Select Gallery's 1:72 Britten-Norman BN-2A Mk. III-2 Trislander

By Chris Bucholtz

History

Although Britten-Norman's BN-2 Islander was enormously successful, selling over 1100 examples around the world, it became clear by the late 1960s that a stretched version of the plane would be needed to capture new markets. A study of the market found numerous carriers who required at least a 50 percent increase in capacity over the Islander's nine-passenger capacity. To accomplish this, the firm decided to adopt a trimotor configuration, but used a unique approach for a piston-engined plane: they put the third engine in the tail, 727-style. This enabled designers to stretch the fuselage ahead of the wing to maintain the center of gravity.

This stretch gave the new plane, dubbed the Trislander, capacity for 17 passengers, who sat in the same 'wall to wall' arrangement as the passengers on the Islander. The wingspan increased by four feet, and length by 14 feet.

The first Trislander flew on September 11, 1970, and made a second hop that day to participate in the 1970 SBAC display! The first production machine took to the air on March 6, 1971 and was delivered to Aurigny Air Services on June 29 of the same year.

Aurigny is still in operation, providing service from Bournemouth and Southampton in Great Britain and Caen, Dinard and Cherbourg in France to the Channel Islands. The airline carries 300,000 passengers a year – not bad, considering that its fleet of Trislanders does it 17 people at a time!

The Kit

Although I get a fair amount of material to review, I must say that in the year and four months that I've been at Internet Modeler, this is definitely the neatest thing that I've received in the mail! When I brought it to our local weekly model confab, my friends, jaded, hardened modelers with many a Frog and Lindberg kit under their belts, fawned over it as if it were a newborn baby, and one of them even tried to steal it! This model is just that good.

Created as a display model for Aurigny, the model's designers went all out to make sure it's also appealing to scale modelers. As a result, the generic yellow box it comes in is packed with 75 pieces. This includes the resin fuselage, wings, tail and nacelles, plastic and white metal seats, a control panel, a separate door for the open nose baggage compartment, rubber tires and white metal wheels and white metal gear struts. The propellers and spinners, gear struts, rear view mirrors, mass balances and control yoke are in white metal. Eight 1/8th-inch lengths of piping are included for the engine exhausts, and the windows are provided as vacuform parts – two sets, for us clumsy folk. There is even a clear red anti-collision beacon for the top of the fuselage!

The castings are very nice, with a few very minor pinholes. The fuselage includes the window frames, and the floor drops out, allowing you to detail the interior and add it after painting the upper fuselage! Fit is generally good – maybe too good: the fit of the wing is very snug out of the box and needs some slight sanding to make it fit. No gap is better than too big a gap, however!

The interior parts include nine coupled seats – metal for ahead of the landing gear, plastic for aft of the gear as a means of building nose weight into the model. A simple two-piece stand featuring the Channel Islands is included as well.

The decal sheet, printed in France by Virages, includes markings for G-JOEY, a striking yellow Aurigny Trislander with the Aurigny insignia in large letters and the royal lion in red on the tail. The plane also wears a smiling face and eyebrows on the nose! The decal sheet also includes an instrument panel decal, rescue markings and de-icer boots

Conclusion

This model is virtually complete in its details, with the exception of seat belts and detail on the control panel. Furthermore, the breakdown and fit is such that even a beginner could build the model with a minimum of hassle and come out with something very attractive. Airline modelers, you have a new name to put on your must-have list next to the KMC 727! Our sincere thanks to Select Gallery for our review example.