Curtiss Robin

Record Fever.

The 20’s and 30’s saw one record flight after another fall more rapidly than the transit of the sun. They were a combination of show business and keen aviation skills, and helped to develop the industry as well as to create confidence among the general public towards the capabilities of the airplane. Individuals, Cities, States and Countries alike sought to gain the first page of newspapers, not to mention the industry brands that saw their products widely advertised in a way many times impossible to buy with money. So it was a win-win situation for everybody involved, pilots, sponsors, media, industry and the general public. This particular machine, thanks to in-flight refueling stayed aloft for more than seventeen days, piloted by Forrest O’Brine and Dale Jackson above the Lambert, St. Louis airfield. The machine was an out-of-the-production-line Curtiss Robin, slightly modified, equipped with the standard Curtiss Challenger six-cylinder engine, named the St. Louis Robin1. Two men manned the plane, taking four-hour turns to pilot and rest on a bunk above the fuselage super-sized auxiliary tank, refuel from the tanker and repair the engine in flight using an external rig braced around the engine. The flight was from 13 July to 30 July 1929. Quite a feat, isn’t it?

So when David, a fellow enthusiast, mentioned the possibility of building a model of it, I was all in.

This particular plane, as said, was adapted for the record flight, so a number of little things will need your keen attention. Always, always, always, no matter how good you think the plan or kit you have is, look at photographic references and contemporary accounts of the events. You will be very surprised almost every single time discovering how far from reality representations could be.

The images as usual give an account of the fabrication of the parts and building techniques and procedures. No kit for this one, fellows, so out with the styrene, wire and tools again. A couple of white metal aftermarket wheels from the now absent from the Net Aeroclub and from the same vendor an engine with suitable cylinders that were chopped-up and reborn as a Curtiss Challenger engine. Resin prop came from Khee-Kha in Alaska. No vacufomed parts were needed this time, mainly thanks to the boxy general shape of the plane. About 200 individual parts were fabricated and many an hour was spent looking for additional references, but you can start with the very good article on this plane on Skyways (Oct 2011) magazine, a publication that I heartily recommend for the level and completeness of its contents.

Nice history, nice plane, nice colors. What else could you ask for an engaging modeling project?