Robinson R44 Raven - Stransky (also KP) 1/72nd scale

 

Above: friend David the Immeasurable tall (he had to be folded over several times to get him in the helo) and wife, taking off from the mysterious African savanna. No wildlife would even get close to him, as if by instinct they knew David is truly despicable and surely would taste horribly. 

The kit comes in a two-part very sturdy box. Well done Stransky as I despise the pre-crushed, too flimsy, side-opening affairs we generally get. Several schemes are offered, none of which I will be using, as the intention is representing the machine David flew in. It is now due for a thorough cleaning to remove his last lunch, dinner and breakfast, all of which decorated the passenger cabin at the first minuscule vibration of the machine. The other passengers...elated.

Main sprue and transparencies in the same bag, good that there is a bag, not good that the transparencies are not packed separately. Vinyl masks (that I avoid like the plague) are included: 

Bought paper masks, much more reliable:

Off the bag. Good detail, a comprehensive interior for the scale, including cockpit instruments, controls, seats, and even the engine. Little flash to speak off, one minor sink mark on the engine block that is covered anyway by other part glued there. No short pours. Looking like a fine, good mold, even for the minuscule parts. You don't see this often:

After a bath to eliminate any possible release agent. The transparencies are clear enough, but of course not optically perfect:

The only weak points so far seems to be an antenna on the tailboom and the tail rotor guard, looking quite fragile. Experience shows that these details are most likely to be obliterated during assembly and seam work. They may be replaced with very fine metal wire or tube, as the guard needs to be masked and painted red and white, which would be difficult to do as it is. There are no locating devices for the fuselage halves. In order to work on the seam of the tailboom, the antenna and guard, as mentioned, will surely be removed, it was a bit of wishful thinking on part of the pattern maker:

A hole needs to be drilled on one part for the engine axle to be inserted:

 Bigger parts are separated and cleaned up. This needs to be done carefully. Smaller parts still attached to the sprue. In order to avoid too much intrusivity many gates are attached more to the side of the parts than to their edges, which in most cases makes cleaning them easier and more effective, good move:

As seen in the header photo, the helicopter flew with the doors off, so these are carved away in the kit. Given the small size and fragility, this must be done slowly and carefully, in successive passes, and then letting go of the rotary tool and finishing by hand:

Base colors are airbrushed to some parts:

Before priming or painting, you will need to carefully remove a few small ejector towers that may hinder fit, and mold lines.

 Home-made nose "lights" will be used (the kit provides none), together with CMR red and clear "beacons" to replace the kit's molded-in ones. The tail feathers have been glued together, and a mold hole covered at the front of the inst.pan.: 

For the sake of simplicity and due to their small size, the engine ventilation screens are rendered as solid parts that would benefit from a black wash to simulate depth. Their locations needed cleaning to remove some flash:

Modelers willing to take some risks and work a little more could theoretically just use thin styrene stick sections bridging the gap to simulate the bars, leaving a space between them for a more realistic effect:
 

Also notice the three white antennas this particular helo uses.

To be continued... 

Short Skyvan - Airfix "Vintage Classics" reissue 2026

Sometime in the past Airfix realized that it was good to bag the parts:

Unfortunately someone at Airfix missed correcting the mistakes on the newly-printed instructions (blue and red arrows are mine):

 Curiously, this below is a much older instructions sheet, that has the windows right (i.e. the door transparency goes to the door, the fuselage windows to their place). As we can seem things did not improve with time, but the opposite: 

There is really well-printed decal sheet (by Cartograph), but with the same Greek option that has been around for decades, and a "fake camo" subject that would be very difficult to paint, with a "mouth" decal that has to follow compound curves...hum. There are so many extremely beautiful schemes this airplane wore during its long line, even airline liveries, one hoped a couple of those would have been considered instead:

Molds from 1975, a little flash here, a little flash there, a sink mark somewhere:

Defective transparencies...again, and this time with a missing part! 

As you open the plastic bag beware those loose parts:

I don't think this was a smart move, what percentage of modelers has a high-def 3D-printer at home?

Unfortunately my copy had deformed fuselage sides...

Sigh...

Was this the product of a partial cooling system failure/blockage that prevented that particular area from cooling thus the plastic remaining soft as the sprues were removed form the molding machine? Or the parts being removed too soon from the mold?

I wish quality control would have caught that, so I don't have to engage in customer service conversations and waiting (hopefully) for new parts to be sent to start building.

I just wrote to Hannants -from whom I bought the kit- to see what solution they offer to replace the deformed fuselage sides and the missing light "lens" in the clear sprue. They in turn are contacting Hornby to see what answer they get.

As a decades-long loyal Airfix customer, with scores of their kits built during my life, and many of them posted in this very blog*, I was expecting better from them.

The Net shows similar concerns:

*These are some of the Airfix builds posted here. Many of them had to be modified to reach their modeling potential, most are civil conversions that Airfix never offered. Some are old kits that need some TLC, some are new kits that are really nice, and some are old and utterly despicable kits that don't deserve to be built, much less re-issued (the Rotodyne comes immediately to mind). It can't be said that I didn't support Airfix...as far as I could:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2023/02/civil-grumman-duck-172nd-airfix-ready.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2019/09/avro-anson-london-school-of-flying.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2025/03/sopwith-pup-civil-conversion-of-airfix.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2019/07/civil-avro-anson-modified-airfix-172.html 

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2015/04/savoia-s79-corsa-adaptation-from-172nd.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2014/07/172-airfix-fairey-rotodyne.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2025/02/fairey-rotodyne-modified-airfix-172nd.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2014/07/172-airfix-de-havilland-dh-88-comet.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-bristol-tourer-conversion-from-f2b.html 

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2020/02/handley-page-o700-airliner-conversion.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2023/12/anson-johnson-1949-mustang-racer-airfix.html 

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2020/10/ford-trimotor-corrugated-wonder.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2022/02/hawker-hurricane-civil-trial-platform-g.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2024/04/de-havilland-dh4a-vintage-172nd-airfix.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2022/11/bristol-bulldog-civil-conversion-of.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2023/08/hi-time-ii-mustang-reno-racer-academy.html

 I still have in the box the nice and relatively new DH.82a, the Boeing Vertol that I plan to convert to civil, an old release of the Catalina (same, conversion to civil) and their Lancaster that (once again) will hopefully some day be a Lancastrian (Star Dust).

 Airfix just released what looks to be a very detailed and well-molded kit of the Junkers Ju-52...but, alas, with no civil options...sigh...

Converting military models to civil ones is very time-consuming, as the modeler has to deal with all kinds of issues (just click on the corresponding links above). Corrugations (as in this new Ju52 Airfix release) being the most difficult to work with. I will give it a pass until new molds/parts come to the market offering a civil option. 

 

 

To be continued?... 
 

Miles M.38 - Aeroclub 1/72nd scale vacuformed + tweaks

 

 Some of you maybe familiar with the mechanics of this blog. Usually a step-by-step building article is posted containing references and abundant photos of the process, often with links to sources, then the completed model. Well, I left my laptop in a remote location and will take some time to recover it, and that building article with plenty of information is in it. So for the time being I will present you the completed model.

 May this be a small (pun not intended) homage to John Adams of Aeroclub fame, who has provided to me and others many hours of joy, together with other vacuform kit manufacturers like Lars Opland of Khee-Kha fame, Mike Herril of Execuform, Gordon Stevens of Rareplane, and so many others. This is one of John's early vacs, quite simple, but can still be built into a respectable model with some TLC.

The photo below, taken from the Net (explanation given at the top, my photos are for the moment inaccessible) shows the kit -minus it's white metal parts (prop and landing gear): 

 I opened the air intake and added a mock engine, new flaps, flap supports, linkages, new interior (seats, control columns, "instruments", rudder bars), Pitot, beacons, antenna, wind-driven generator, Venturi and door handles. The decals used are leftovers from this KP Miles M.38 kit that I have built some time ago (I just added the walkways):

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2022/11/miles-m38-messenger-kp-172nd.html

This vintage Aeroclub model was fun to build, and this type of model helps you hone your skills and work out solutions that later can be applied to mainstream kits. 

Nothing like a touch of vintage, eh John?

If you like vacs, or would like to like them, this blog have dozens of them, many built together with their injected counterparts. There is much to enjoy and learn from this hands-on medium.

Cute little thing: