The Hunting Percival P.56 piston Provost was a British trainer developed for the Royal Air Force in the 1950s to fill the gap between first basic training and later (jet) type training. The design had a side by side seating in the cockpit, a low-wing monoplane and fitted with a fixed, tail wheel undercarriage. First flight was in February 1950.
The production aircraft, produced at the Percival plant (taken over by Hunting) at Luton, had the Alvis Leonides 25 radial piston engine of 550 hp. The piston Provost entered RAF service in 1953 for use by Flying Training Schools. There was also an armed version and training, mainly for export. During the Cold War, the Provost was important trainer and over 450 Provosts were manufactured.  Some Provosts were exported to e.g. Ireland, Iraq, Burma, Sudan, Oman, Malaysia and "Southern" Rhodesia.  

a Provost seen during a museum Tour by me in the U.K. in the 1990s.

The Provost later was used to start with the Jet Provost T. Mk 1 

Matchbox Lesney of the UK issued this 1/72 scale kit no. PK-30 way back in 1976. It is for a Provost T / mk.1.  (AMT also released this kit in 1979).

The kit is basic but nevertheless nice and has the well known different coloured plastic parts. Panel lines are raised. The detailing is acceptable.

Decals are for...
(1) for RAF Central Flying School at Little Rissington in a silver dope scheme ;
(2) Sultan of Oman air force aircraft with a camouflage scheme. 
 

Assembly is rather straight forward of this kit.

A little more detail can be added in the cockpit. Seats can be separated and than a bit detailed. They can provided with belts. I also added an instrument panel with decals for dials and knobs from the spare decal box.

The radial piston engine is a bit basic but acceptable as it resided back in the cowling. 

The model was finished in a scheme as per kit for the RAF Central Flying School at Little Rissington. First a base grey coat was airbrush, this is really necessary to cover the bright coloured plastic. I used Revell Aqua 75 Steingrau for the base / primer coat.

The basic colour is basic silver dope for which I used Revell Aqua 90 "Silver" with a black anti-glare panel. The dayglow stripes are decals. I later found these stripes to become a little opaque but left them as supplied. It may be better to replace these.
 
I replaced the RAF roundels with new ones from a Xtradecal sheet which have better colours. 
The wing tip anti-collision lights were cut out and drops of Microscale Kleer added to get a transparent look.

The model was not weathered, training Provosts were kept in well condition. A final airbrushed coat of Johnson Future / Pledge protected the decals and gave a nice gloss sheen. 

The canopy edges and gaps were closed with white glue. When dry, the canopy frames were hand painted with a fine brush. Any glitches can be removed after drying with a wooden tooth pick. 

The propeller was installed with a drop of white glue to fix it, a tiny wire antenna made from fishing line added on the spine and that completed the model.
 
 
 

 

 

 

   Percival Provost of the RAF Central Flying School at Little Rissington 

A nice little model for the RAF trainer collection. 

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REFERENCES

Books and magazines:

- Scale Aircraft Modelling magazine, issue February 1988

Web:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percival_Provost