The Incredible Adventures of Socrates (an aviation philosopher)
Master Po smiled peacefully and asked if I thought I was already a Shaolin Monk. Knowing him I remained silent. He said: “Little grasshopper, in order to be ready for the outside world and leave behind the tumults of a helter-skelter modeling life, you must produce the masters for a vacuformed kit. Only then the stars will shine on the calm surface of the lake and the cranes will fly to Styreneland”
So I went my way and started to work on the wood masters for
the Capelis XC-12, whose hidden beauty only master Po
and few others were able to appreciate.
Well, may be the story is more like I saw Jim Lund’s scratchbuilt
Capelis model thanks to Alex Bigey’s website. Jim was very generous and helpful
and encouraged me to go ahead and build the Capelis. Fellow modelers pointed to
sources and references and so the project started to get momentum and
eventually Mike Herrill from Execuform made the vacuformed copies. The main
reference was the Skyways magazine article on the Capelis found on the October
1995 issue (#36). You may get your copy contacting them:
But first, what was the Capelis?
Some scholars state that occidental culture as we know it
was born in Greece, a well of knowledge that still today feeds psychology,
philosophy, mythology and modeling (just remember the great Greek philosopher,
modeler and olive pitter Styrenides (V century B.S.).
The Capelis started as a transport project of the Capelis
Corporation, whose president, of course, was no other than Socrates Capelis.
The Greek community backed the project and by 1933 the plane was ready. Modern
for the time (all metal construction) sported nevertheless a forward leaning
canopy and a biplane tail, which some say was an outdated feature, but nobody
will dare to deny that confers the plane its remarkable aesthetics (aesthetics
as a science, by the way, is another Greek legacy).
Things weren’t peachy, though, an after some inauspicious
beginnings the whole thing was prematurely and unfortunately dropped. But the
Capelis kept going, this time re-incarnated as a movie prop. It endured some
modifications and went on for many movies bathing on the golden glory of Hollywood, featuring in
many films, the most arguably famous of which are “Five Came Back” with –among
many other movie stars- Lucille Ball and “Flying Tigers” with John Wayne.
The above-mentioned masters were very simple, on the vein of
those vacuformed kits that provide the general shapes. Details, accessories,
decals and the like are provided by the modeler, as well as surface detail.
Once I got my vacuformed parts from Mike, I started building
the model. There were some minor and major modifications done to the Capelis
over time. This model represents the plane as it flew, with its forward-raking
canopy. Another nose
was later mastered to allow the building of the movie versions, which has a
more conventional canopy arrangement.
As a mythological metallic bird coming from Mount Olympus,
the Capelis extends its wings over the modeling world.
See you soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment