Cierva C.30a Autogyro - Veeday vintage 1/72nd scale kit

 

Autogyros, the Cinderellas of aviation. They almost made it into common use, but not quite. I have been always attracted to these ugly ducklings and built a few of them, some scratchbuilt and some from kits:

I had this Veeday Models kit for a long time, languishing in some inaccessible crag of the closet. I bought it not knowing what was in store for me (or any other poor modeler that happened to buy it) and after one look it was relegated to the “hell no” pile. But you know me; once in a while I fall into an inexplicable “kit rescue” mood, and deal with this kind of underdogs. Many of such rescues plague the pages of this blog.

RS and Azur have issued 1/72^nd scale kits of this machine. I have built the Azur boxing which has a fatal flaw in the rotor hub, made of pitifully fragile resin. The RS kit looks similar, but the rotor hub is plastic, not resin. Merlin Models also issued one, but I wouldn’t touch any Merlin Models kit with a 10 yard pole. I built two of their despicable kits, and threw the others I had to the trash can. Other manufacturers like Formaplane also released this type but I can't comment on that.

So, this Weeday Models kit…starting from the box made of post-WW2 rationing cardboard, then the no parts map or graphic assembly sequence, and arriving to the flash galore this kit regales us with. It's good that Veeday decided to make a kit of much needed flash, the only thing you have to do to be in possession of the purest, scariest flash you ever saw, is removing and get rid of those other elements that look (quite vaguely) like autogyro parts. True, is extremely difficult to tell which is which, but if you want your expensive Veeday flash, you have to do it.

Jokes aside (by now you should be crying anyway) the manufacturer writes a “mea culpa” in the instructions. Would he be forgiven? The jury is still out:

The plastic (no kidding) is the hardest I ever encountered in a kit. The quality of the molding would make Bela Lugosi cringe. So start by replacing all that can be replaced: struts (which are really bad) wheels, landing gear (which has one leg shorter than the other), exhaust, prop (a miniature replica of a Brancusi sculpture otherwise bearing little resemblance with reality) and almost surely the rotor blades which are way too thick and have a disproportionate trim tab. The engine is better replaced too, and I have a spectacular resin Armstrong Siddeley Genet Major IA made by Master Matías Hagen of Argentina, creator of a meticulously detailed and cleanly cast line of resin kits at:

https://72topia.blogspot.com/

I will also be providing a cockpit floor and isnt. panels, plus of course the decals (will try to keep it simple to see if I can print them myself). 

No assembly sequence, no parts' map: 

Not precisely a perfect match:

Better now:

The sprues:

Flash galore. And not of the thin, easily-cleaned variety:

You can see here that parts replacement has started. On the right bottom corner a number of airfoiled struts to replace the quite bad ones in the kit:

You can flatten solder rolling it wrapped on a mental handle to make the substitute exhaust ring:

But much better to replace the whole engine with the Armstrong Siddeley Genet Major IA fantastic rendition of Matías Hagen's 72Topia works in Argentina:

Replacing the dubious parts in the kit (the kit's exhaust ring has a circular cross-section, which is inaccurate):

This is what Weeday wants you to do. As old kits go, not the worst I have seen, and yet...

I rather scratch my own rotor using airfoiled extruded plastic:

Here some drawings from a NACA circular
 

The horizontal tail in the kit does not have the reversed airfoil on the left side. After trying to modify the part, I decided to fabricate one from styrene sheet:

Most C.30a I see online have a Fairey-Reed type prop, so one is fabricated from aluminium sheet:

Not satisfied with my first scratch that did not show ribbing, I started a built-up horizontal tail:

So, up right the kit horizontal tail. To its left the sheet one, and at the bottom the ones that I will actually be using after cutting, reversing and bending up.

So, to be clear, half the stab (the right one) had a "curved up" airfoil, whilst the other half was reversed, being flat on top and curved underneath. Live and learn: 

The new rotor:

The rotor base has a disc that will be removed to install a gear seen in drawings:

The gear is glued in place:

It has a small shaft where the rotor will click on. If not a perfect replica, it is much more convincing and detailed than the original part

Starting to paint some components:

The airframe I am trying to reproduce had a small spinner on the prop:

The kit's control column is replaced with a home-made item. After doing this, I realized looking at photos that I may have to make another one, as the kit's is not really accurate. Moral: never fully trust a kit:

 

 Base colors and primers applied:

The three components of the engine (engine, intakes and exhaust) are assembled:

Third time is the charm. Above is a slimmer, more to scale control column:

 

To be continued...

Update: Hallam vac Twin Pioneer and Horten IAe 38 "Naranjero" Argentinian cargo flying wing

 

 

 

Two projects that I put on the back burner are back on track (let's hope):

Months ago I completed the Valom injected release of the Scottish Twin Pioneer. Now work on the vintage Hallam vac kit of it resumes:

 

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2025/07/hallam-vac-172nd-scottish-aviation-twin.html

 

And the Argentinian Horten flying wing cargo plane

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2022/10/fma-i-ae-38-naranjero-argentinian.html

 

 

 

Feliz Año Nuevo! - Happy New Year!

 

Farman F.223.1 F-APUZ Istres-Damascus-Paris race. AZUR/Air Magazine 1/72nd

 

From a design tradition rooted in the somewhat Lovecraftian Farman Jabiru, this 4-engined monster is another take on how to harness the power of those multiple engines in an efficient way, grouping them together close to the center of gravity and thrust centerline as to minimize the impact that the potential different outputs of even flare-outs could have in the plane’s attitude. As history demonstrated, the more conventional arrangement that dates from much, much earlier (1918), is the one mostly used now:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2015/07/zeppelin-staaken-e420-completed.html

Azur / Air Magazine no doubt put tremendous effort and financial resources in producing the several variants and boxings of the Farman F.220. This is an unusual plane and therefore a sells risk that they did not hesitate to take. For all that they need to be applauded. Still, there are some accuracy and engineering issues that need to be addressed. As an aside, I wish they would have also included the type 224 passenger transport, a gloriously handsome plane that would have made the delight of civil modelers (there is a vacuformed kit of it by Aerovac, OOP and very hard to get). As military planes are not my cuppa, I bought the F-APUZ boxing that allows you to build the Transatlantic flier or the Istres-Damascus-Paris racer (each one with some differences not addressed in the instructions, though).

No kit is perfect, so this Farman NC223.1 by Azur/Air Magazine is a good example of a kit that has a very nice surface, portrays a very appealing subject, has good detail parts, is generally convincing, but it is most definitely not for beginners due to many reasons described below, and yet should give modelers with experience satisfaction, as long as they are willing to work to correct inaccuracies and shortcomings. As explained in the step-by-step building article:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2025/10/farman-223-1-f-apuz-azur-172nd.html

To get out of the way the obvious: the kit instructions prescribe a color I was not happy with. Thus, a greyish shade of aluminium was used in concurrence with the qualified opinion of other modelers and aviation enthusiasts. Photos and references in favor of this choice are posted in the step-by-step building article.

There are things that need to be looked after for the sake of accuracy -this is also noted by other modelers- and the lack of locating devices for the wing and fuselage and other parts (not all, though) calls for some extra work and extra care from the modeler on dealing with those parts, securing and aligning them. The abundance of struts, big and small, long and short, presents challenges, compounded by instructions mishaps. There are locating devices for the interior and the tail group (unfortunately you have to completely redo the tail for this boxing of the Istres race and Transatlantic planes). The struts associated with to engine gondolas (varied and complex) have only butt joints, and this subassembly was challenging to say the very least.

Nonetheless, the fit (in general) is mostly fair, the detail is adequate for the scale (although many details can be added and some in the kit are not accurate), the instructions mostly explanatory (but with errors) and the subject magnificent. I liked this kit so much that I got another.

I would define this as a fair kit, and how I wish Azur and Air Magazine would do one of the Couzinet marvels, as the Heller kit is truly atrocious (I have built one with great effort and many mods).

Summarizing, a kit of a very appealing subject, produced to a fair standard, with a number of things that need addressing -not unlike many other kits. In this case:

-There are issues at the wing roots, which are not equal and do not match properly the airfoil relief detail on the fuselage sides. On my sample the wing skins were neither straight nor had the same camber, and had to be “convinced” to adopt the correct shapes

-The horizontal tail lacks the broad arrow that the leading edge shows in photos (the kit part shows a constant chord affair, which is, sadly, inaccurate). Also the “ears” of the elevator should go all the way to the leading edge, and not to mid-chord as in the kit.

-The vertical tail surfaces are small compared to photos -and the instructions- and lack the trim tabs

-all control surfaces lack horns and linkages, plus counterweights in the case of the ailerons

-Details missing (for the IstresDamascus-Paris racer): Venturi on top of the fuselage after the canopy, directional finder loop, wind driven generator, trailing antenna and three Pitot (two on the strut of the left wing and one on the strut of the right wing).

-The cabin door is placed too far ahead; it was much closer to the wing trailing edge, and one of the small round windows doesn’t need drilling, whilst the correct window should change position following the door.

-The corners where the fuselage sides meet the top should be a bit more rounded aft of the wing.

-The instructions and drawings confuse the nose window arrangement of the Transatlantic flier with the Istres-Damascus-Paris racer.

-The flaps have a narrower chord than the ailerons, this was missed in the kit, but is depicted on the box art.

-The instructions contain several mistakes. One of them is stating that the aft props have the blade sides that face forward black, which is incorrect. As many photos clearly show the sides of the all blades of all the props facing aft are black.

Other details could be added to the model, but at this point the amount of time, energy and research invested to catch the inaccuracies is over quota, so may be for the future.

This is a big model, with many parts, and therefore took some time to build. The fact that you have to deal with shortcomings and inaccuracies added to the building time. As I have a second kit of it which I will finish as the Transatlantic flier, I will completely scratchbuild the tail area -as it is sadly way off in the kit- which is a more effective way to deal with the issue than the modification of the kit’s parts as I did here. As you can see, to get an accurate replica some work is involved, and yet it is not outside the scope of experienced modelers. If AZUR/Air Magazine would have taken the time to refine this release adding wing spars, positive locating devices throughout (especially on the struts around the engine gondolas) and doing better research, this would have been no doubt a candidate for “Kit of the Year”. But do not take my perhaps too meticulous review as negative, I am just trying to save fellow modelers potential headaches, AND notice that I bought a second kit of this Beautiful French Beast. But know that you will have to work hard. Still…big reward!

 

 

As sometimes happens, photos revealed a couple of forgotten details. In this case to slice the decals as they cross hinge lines and adding the rudder trim tabs linkages. On it. Photos show a long antenna wire attaching to the right fin, but no photo I have shows to where it attaches on the other end, so it was left out for the time being.