Down East International. Say this around people of the right age, and their eyes mist over with happy memories of the exploits of Ace McCool, T.H.E. Smarts, Cowboy McKlosky, Stew Jane, Mile High Millie, Red Starr, T.I. (Totally Inept) Jacobs, Crazy Iris, and Phil Lister. Gracing the back pages of "Canadian Aviation" in the 80s, it was highly politically incorrect, and extremely funny. They all worked at an "airline" based out of Moncton NB, and their exploits were often not what you'd call legal, such as inverted tower flybys in a Vanguard. Written by Captain Jack Desmarais, their adventures wound up in book form. I need to find it one day.

This, however, is not that "DEI". This is from the extremely popular TV series, "Ace McCool", shot by CBC in Russia. Why Russia? Well, most of the things Ace and Co. get up to either poke fun at the major airlines and manufacturers, or local and national governments, and as such, the show found itself without a place or a plane to make their show! Fortunately, the Russians were willing to play host to the crazy Canucks, in exchange for some well placed advertising and a boatload of cash. This explains a lot of the odd accents in the show, and why Cowboy McKloskey, an Albertan, flies a private SU-27!

Seen here is the Sukhoi Superjet 100 that Ace "Aquired" in the pilot episode. The storyline had him negotiating with the Russians for some slightly used TU-154s, but he brought in his Newfie Ringer and was able to drink the Russkies under the table. Vodka may be strong, but Skreech is able to boil paint at a thousand yards! By the time the Russians had recovered, the Sukhoi-100 was in Moncton flying fares.* 

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I used the Zvezda Sukhoi-100 1/144 scale kit, and I have to say it was a beauty to assemble! The nose wheels had opening barely able to be seen, and yet the strut pins slid right in perfectly! I've never had a kit with that level of tolerences that worked before! There was a slight gap on the port engine pylon, and had I been trying to take more time, it would have been easy to fix. One small complaint, they didn't include a bulkhead behind the cockpit, but since I was using plastiscene to make the nose heavy, I just used that to make a large flat blob instead. It worked fine. The canopy glass fit a bit poorly on the port side, and a little work will be needed to fix that as well. 

Otherwise, it was a breeze! Decals came from my trusty ancient inkjet printer and Testors decal paper. I used the doors from the kit, and they were amazingly thin, and a bit fragile, so be careful there kids! 

Alvis 3.1

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