Vacuformed Classic Plane 1/72 Bristol 72 racer

From the archive (2010):

What happens when a plane gets engine indigestion?  Yes, a 1922 Bristol 72.

And if -as in this case- the plane is a racer, it is all too bad.

Nevertheless in the process a cartoon character may have been created. Or perhaps a flying keg that would have been the delights of the prohibition smugglers. Or simply a cute, puny-winged, chubby racer. Ok, ok, may be “racer” is an overstatement. But it wanted to!

In any case, let’s not be so judgmental. It had a monocoque fuselage and retractable landing gear, it had a Jupiter radial that was advanced and powerful and was supposed to be efficiently cowled. It was also painted red, which is always a bonus in the case of racers.

The Classic Plane 1/72 vac kit seems to be still obtainable, although their distributors in Germany (Modellbaustudio Rhein Ruhr) may take some time to deliver it to you (as per their own warning in their site). And when I say “some time” I mean years. Kidding. Not really. Well, just exaggerating a bit.

It is a sorta so-so kit, with overstated ribbing, generous thickness styrene, two halves to make one whole wheel (see image of the sheet), no interior drawings (or parts), no engine. a thing resembling vaguely a half propeller and in the instructions a naive method to represent the bicycle wheel-like spinner structure (photoetched parts here would have been ideal). It is not big deal though to go and get a decent prop, engine, some wire for the landing gear legs and pair of wheels, so not really anything serious to cry about.

And again, do you think the manufacturers of Messerschmitts by the truckload will ever kit something like this? Exactly my point, so if this is what we have, then welcome.

My sample (a hand-me-down kit by generous Keith, my thanks to him) didn’t have decals, so I ignore if they are provided with the kit. And the marks are white, so watch out.

The parts’ count is not high and the interior can be a simple matter.

Regarding construction methods you could start by crying and shouting, so you don’t have to deal with that later on. Then separate the parts front the backing sheet, since it is not easy to build the model if you don’t. Then sand. And then proceed to sand a bit more. And perhaps later on you can do some sanding. And last but not least let’s not forget about sanding.

Be careful not to oversand.

The fuselage front as molded has a resemblance of the buffers that were installed between the engine cylinders. You could leave some of that detail or just bore the thing and do the detail by yourself, which I did.

The spinner was allocated two spoke rims as per original and was painted wood color, since some of the flights were made with it unpainted. A wood prop was carved at this point and an engine scrambled from the spares’ bin.

Some internal fuselage structure was added and a cockpit devised.

Beware that the kit's marks on the fuselage to cut out the lodging positions for the retractable landing gear leg components are wrongly depicted. As they are (besides being a bit wobbly) they curve in a concave way, while they should be straight (looking perpendicular to the fuselage axis) thus producing -since they are traced over a circular volume- seemingly slightly convex legs (see image). I made the legs with “Strutz” brass airfoiled material and the oleos with some wire.

Once the main parts were put together a strange whale started to emerge. It had all the appearance of a chubby antique tin toy, and the appeal started to be obvious.

Priming and touch-ups ensued and acrylic paint was applied. Decals, rigging and a few external details finished the job, or so I thought. After I photographed the model for this article I realized that the Pitot and headrest were not in place, so one last photo was taken showing those. Moral: if you are racing, do not forget your Pitot.