This
is Anigrand’s C-17 made up in as Canadian CC-177 number 177704 – the final
of four deliveries of new cargo transports for the Canadian Forces. The kit is all resin – this is the first time I have built an all resin kit
– the many things I have learned will be applied to the next go around!
The
kit is pretty basic, but still pretty challenging to construct – identifying
various blobs of resin and where to cut was a constant challenge. Many
times I suffered the old problem of cutting twice and still being too short.
The instructions are non-existent (one schematic picture with some labeling) but
I guess that is what one must expect from a cottage industry kit.
As
a note – the tail plane makes this model very rear-heavy. I realized
this late and had to drill up through the front wheel well to add a pile of lead
weights (stolen from my son’s tackle box – shh!). The drilling and
manipulation caused all sorts of dust to fly about the cockpit and stick to the
windscreen. Other than that, the most difficult part was getting the beast
to sit on all 14 wheels – I think I achieved about 75% - but luckily the
aircraft sits so low and the wheel well doors cover the mistakes well.
Click on
images below to see larger images
I
added a bunch of antenna and bumps from various spares of various scales.
There’s three bizarre mushroom antenna that are made from some rod and 1/35
leopard tank photoetch smoke generator covers.
The
markings are from CanMilAir decals – they need to be coated with MicroScale
Liquid Decal. I was skeptical about this actually working but I must say
those decals are the best I have ever worked with. The carrier film is
strong enough to allow some pretty aggressive moving and then they snug right
down. Totally impressive.
Overall,
I think it captures the look of the CC-177 well – a nice addition of a new
aircraft in the Canadian inventory.
Graham
|