Beauty is
sometimes a hidden quality that only needs just the right eyes to come
out. Motive, on the other hand, may remain forever arcane when you think about
the rationales that supported the creation of certain flying things.
In any case, how can anybody resist the charm and flair of winged wonders
like this one.
The more you enter into the strange lands of scratch-building, the less
information is likely to easily appear. In this particular case there were
no plans or three views, and just a very few images were available upon
which you should muster enough building steam to arrive to a safe landing,
which, be it said, wasn’t the case with the real plane.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The Arctic Tern
was a special-purpose plane created in 1932 to provide a photo platform to
survey remote Alaskan regions -like Wasilla-, intended to be used by Shell
in its explorations.
As far as we know, it was really used to scare the pilot, passengers and
bystanders, not to mention the occasional real arctic tern.
Besides the pilot, cruelly semi-exposed to the elements –and to bear the
sight of the plane itself-, two enclosed positions were provided on top of
the floats, with forward-leaping windscreens a la Fokker F.10.
The plane’s original wing was donated by a Lockheed Sirius, the tail by
a Vega, being the engine a Wasp of imprecise denomination.
The design
unavoidably evoques the Savoia Marchetti S.55 and specially the Bleriot 125,
among various other beautiful nightmares.
The model at a glance:
Starting from the photos a drawing was sketched as a truly optimistic base for
the ensuing construction. The floats came from a Sword Beech Staggerwing, which
were slightly broadened with a sandwiched styrene sheet and later re-contoured.
The front of the structures on top of the floats came from modified left over
pants of the Matchbox Heyford. The engine, prop, main wheels and struts are from
Aeroclub. Everything else was pretty much squeezed-out from the Fifth Dimension,
including the Sculpey-made “upper” fuselage.
As a bonus track a photo sequence graphically describes the method used to
scratch the “tail” wheels.
Man that I enjoy making these things.
Gabriel
Click on
images below to see larger images
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