Greetings from the Philippines! Just
dropping by my favorite modelling website to share a few pics of a sentimental
favorite - the Testors/Italeri C-47 kit in 1/72 scale.
This kit and I go a long way back. In the early 80's my family used to go
bargain hunting in the shops that surrounded the former US Air Force base at
Clark Field, north of Manila. Tons of consumer goods unloaded by base personnel
were for sale in large flea-market stalls.
You could buy anything from imported grocery goods to flight suits to American
cars in those days. I even have a friend who went home with an ejection seat
from an F-101 Voodoo! Being then a plucky eight-year old, I was keen only
on one thing - model kits. This was the very first kit I ever felt I had to
have. Maybe it was the glaring shark's mouth markings, or maybe it was because
there were still plenty of C-47s active in the Philippines back then and I often
saw them plodding past my house. Luckily, dad forked over the 50 or so pesos for
the kit. I built it as quickly as I could, hand painting it in whatever was
available in my small stash of model paints. The goal was always to get it into
action with my toy soldiers as quickly as possible. Predictably, though I loved
that old C-47, it did not last very long. Thus, you can imagine my delight when
I saw it on sale at a hobby shop near my office. (The 50 peso kit was now worth
500 pesos) I quickly snapped it up and triumphantly showed it to my family - a
piece of my childhood! they scratched their heads as if to say "When did
you actually start acting like an adult?" True, although I'm a lawyer by
profession, I'll always be a big kid who keeps his stash of model planes
comfortingly close to his legal books and laptop.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The kit is one of the few kits available
for the C-47 in this scale, though many different versions are available.
Modellers who have built it will probably agree, it's basic, but a good
representation of the aircraft. It doesn't have too much detail inside,
but there isn't much to see anyway, once you close up the fuselage. I
wanted to add detail where I could, so I used mostly stretched sprue and
plastic sheet to
recreate the typical antennae layout of the R4D on the box front. I also
added landing light assemblies within the clear lenses on the wings.
The
original Testors issue of the kit had a picture of the actual aircraft
while in service, my latter purchase did not.
Curiously, while I was unable to find any period pictures of Bu No
50811 on the Internet, I did discover that it has been repainted in D-Day
colors and exhibited in a US Museum. A fair amount of fitting and sanding
goes a long way into making the kit look 'right' when put together.
Painting was made much easier by applying a protective coat of future
floor polish after every color was sprayed on. The decals
were a bit thick, but settled well after lots of decal softener. All in
all a fun build, and well worth the 24 hours spent in construction and
finishing.
Thanks for dropping by to look! Long
live ARC!
Micah Reysio-Cruz
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