It was 1933, and the
great Depression was in full force. Santa needed a fast, nimble plane to deliver
the badly needed presents that year, as his previous use of airships had proven
to be filled with troubles. His crack team of aircraft designers were naturally
drawn to the highly successful Supermarine S6 design, and after modification to
operate on skis instead of floats, the plane was ready for a Christmas delivery
schedule.
Click on
images below to see larger images
Unfortunately, the design
team at the North pole neglected to redesign the coolant system as it
required large radiator surfaces built into both the fuselage and
floats...with no floats, there was a noticable loss of cooling capability.
Fortunately, the winter that year was sufficiently cold enough that the
plane survived long enough to make all its' runs, but the engine was
heavily damaged and had to be scrapped.
This model was
built from the 1/48 scale Testors Supermarine S6B racer. I used the skis from a
Modelcraft Norseman, and painted it using a combination of Tamiya sprays and
acrylics. The decals came from my home printer and Testors Decal Film.
This kit was very
kindly supplied to me free of charge by "Major Matt Mason" AKA M3 from
Starship Modeler. I honoured this act of generousity by numbering the
plane with his moniker.
Alvis 3.1
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