From the archive (2010):
The year is 1935. Wiley Post, renowned pilot, is putting
together a hybrid plane made of a Lockheed Orion fuselage and the wing of a
lesser known Lockheed type, the Explorer.
The wing of the Explorer is about six feet longer in span
than the original wing, and to add to that Wiley wants his plane to be able to
land on water, so he attaches two EDO floats.
To compensate for the increase in weight, a beefed-up power plant replaces the
original one. People at Lockheed apparently weren’t exactly thrilled about
those modifications at the time.
Companion in his adventure is the no less renowned Will
Rogers, comedian, humorist, writer and actor.
The flight, thought as a way to explore possible routes to Russia and to provide writing material for Rogers, unfortunately ends in disaster in Alaska with the loss of
the two lives.
The graceful lines of the Orion are indeed pleasant enough,
but with the longer wing and the floats, the total becomes more than the sum of
its parts, if you allow me this Gestaltean digression.
I got the Special Hobby Orion release as a starting point. I
am glad manufacturers are venturing with iconic civilian releases, and I hope
it is a trend that will continue. This kit has been in the market for a while
and has been reviewed plentifully, so I won’t abound in details. Suffice to say
that it is a short-run release with a large number of resin bits and vac canopy
included, good cockpit detail, no cabin detail, butt joints and exuberant panel
lines. A nice set of decals (that went unused for this model) completes the
package. For a moment I considered using the kit’s wing, splicing it and adding
a center section, but the work surely would have been long and tiring, and the
wheel area had to be deleted anyway, so I opted instead for scratching a new
wing.
The floats were no problem, since Khee-Kha Art Products from
Alaska -besides its range of bushplane
vacuformed kits- has a wonderful, well made and well detailed range of resin EDO floats. I ordered the J-5300 (based on masters
produced originally by Jim Schubert) from them. They came with the water
rudders, control arms and cleats, all well detailed and flawlessly cast.
I have used Khee-Kha’s products before and was extremely
pleased with them and their customer service.
So I had the Orion’s kit fuselage, Khee-Kha’s floats and the
scratch-built wing.
Some reports state the interior of the plane lodged quite a
bit of cargo; in order to do that it is probable that some seats were removed,
but lacking references on the matter I opted to paint the cabin matt black. The
resin engine that comes with the kit is very nice, and given the fact that in
this particular machine the engine is covered by a frontal plate used to reduce
airflow in winter or cold climates, I decided to save the resin engine and swap
it for a good white metal one that had a little less detail. You get a spare
cylinder for the resin engine, but you get exactly the number of injected clear
windows you need for the cabin, in spite of the fact that they were molded
longer than necessary and that you have to tailor them to fit –as indicated in
the instructions-. Guess who lost a window to the “twing” dimension and ended
up making one from a cd cover?
It would be nice if the manufacturers would add a spare part
when you have multiples, like in struts, seats, etc. I am sure the cost should
not be impacted too much, and will give the modeler a second chance when minute
parts jump into the “twing” and “twang” dimensions.
As it is almost invariably the case with resin interiors you
have to spend a couple hours trying to make two objects occupy the same space
at the same time, which, as anybody knows, is a physics’ impossibility
(although apparently not for some manufacturers).
Once the fuselage was closed a missing luggage hatch was
added, and an air intake was glued to the right-hand side of the cowl. The fit
of the scratch wing was adjusted and before gluing it the wing was given some cautious
surface detail. The locations for the float struts, Pitot, landing lights and
nav lights were prepared. Some hoisting
lugs and bumps underneath were added at this point too.
Floats were given the right track (as per Khee-Kha
instructions), bridged with two brass airfoiled struts (from “Strutz”), and the
inverted “V” upright struts were also fixed to facilitate ulterior joining with
the wing (after painting, since they were different colors).
Once the main parts were put together the puttying and
sanding cycle ensued, the task I unfortunately enjoy the least. Well, it is not
that “I enjoy it the least”, actually I really don’t like it. More so, I
blatantly hate it.
Once the primer stage arrived I coated lightly some areas of
the model and heavily some others (on the fuselage) in an attempt to subdue the
too prominent panel lines.
Now, I must warn you here about a little known law of
physics, the infamous Pugetian Principle. It states that when you don’t want to
cover your beautiful panel lines, they will be utterly obliterated at the
slightest pass of the primer, but when you want them to be less obvious or at
least fade a bit they will resist any kind of overcoat you can throw at them,
no matter how thick.
The Orion/Explorer hybrid was overall red with
silver/aluminum floats, registrations, trim and tail marks. I painted the silver/aluminum
color with a lacquer and coated it with Future in preparation for the
subsequent actions. My plan was to cut masks for the registrations, and they
came up so so. Then again to the rescue came Christos of Alabama with the
silver decals. He saved my two last projects with his kind generosity.
Again, as with the Clark GA-43, I used some CMK navigation
lights. They are good, although a tad expensive for my pocket. Some of them,
usually the bigger ones, for some obscure reason, are mounted in flat,
rectangular-section stalks, instead of the round thin stalks used for the
smaller lights. This makes mounting them a pain in the neck. Why they are not
all of them mounted in round-section stalks has no logic to me, since it would
make installing them in a previously-drilled hole a breeze. Cutting them out of
the useless stalks and then trying to glue them I lost four to the Twang
dimension.
Once the main subassemblies were ready they were put
together with a sigh of relief.
I added the home-made Venturis and then started to peel-off
the window masks. Or try too. You see, I decided to use again the Mr. Masking
Sol Neo, in spite of a not pleasant experience with the Vultee V-1. What I can
say now is that my very short acquaintance –to call it friendship would be
indeed excessive- with this product is hereby terminated. The mask became
–because may be for the use of primers-
a sort of gooey ectoplasmatic blob that resisted removal and could make
the delights of a class z science fiction producer. I was not completely
successful in the removal what didn’t want to ruin the surroundings using a
harsh product.
The canopy was added and its frames were represented by
painted decals. Then the Pitot and the walkway were positioned and it was time
to seat back after the intensive ride.
All in all not a pharaonic enterprise thanks to the readily
available Khee-Kha floats and Orion kit. You only need to add that wing. And a
few hours work J
I hope Wiley is
smiling somewhere.
I would like to thank Jim Schubert, Lars Opland and Christos
Psarras for their generous help.
Khee-Kha (the manufacturer of the resin floats that also has
a range of vacuformed bushplanes) can be reached here:
