1/48 Sword Models Northrop N1-M "Jeep"

Gallery Article by Darius Aibara 

 

Following on from their kit of Northrop's N9M-A Flying Wing, Sword Models have released a 1:48 kit of the earlier N1-M "Jeep".  The kit is similar to its predecessor, being well detailed with polyurethane resin engine intakes, cockpit sidewalls and seats, two vac-formed canopies and a small decal sheet with USAAF star roundels and the Northrop logo.

 

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The fuselage/wing is moulded in two halves, upper and lower, with separate propeller shaft housings.  The main undercarriage wheel wells are shallow and lack detail and I was tempted to scratch build replacements, however lack of reference data and the general invisibility of these areas led me to leave the wells as is (OK, I didn't really fancy scratch building them).

The interior was painted as per the kit instructions (plywood with aluminium and black details) although correspondence that I received after the earlier N9M-A model suggests that the cockpit (of the N9M-B) is painted "Interior green".

The propellers differ in shape from those shown in the picture of the N1M in Volume 2 of "Wings of Fame", but after some cleaning up they did not look too bad.  I drilled the prop hub and shaft housings to insert a steel wire shaft in order to mount them to the fuselage. 

Once complete, the fuselage was spray painted Humbrol gloss yellow and the decals added.  This is a good kit of an interesting prototype.  Hopefully Sword Models will continue to issue kits of these fascinating aircraft.

Darius Aibara

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Photos and text © by Darius Aibara