Many international sports events were held during the 30s
where countries attempted to demonstrate their aeronautical prowess and gain
prestige. The Schneider Cup was one of them, the McRobertson London to
Melbourne Air Race was another, and also notorious was the
Istres-Damascus-Paris Air race.
Italy
had the upper hand since it entered a number of machines with state
sponsorship, a group of Savoia Marchetti S.M.79s, and two Fiat BR.20As. They
were all civil versions that differed from their military counterparts to some
extent. The airframes were completely demilitarized of course and optimized for
speed and long range capabilities.
Their visual appeal is needless to say orders of magnitude
higher than the one of their boring, drab and gloomy counterparts, and of a
higher order was their purpose too.
Through the years I have modeled a few of those machines
(D.H.88s, D.H.89 and SM79s come to mind), and who knows, may be one day, when
their numbers increase, they could be displayed in a nice starting line array
(I am ogling, as I write this, the box of the Farman 223-1 F-APUZ kit released
by Azur that flew also in the Istres-Damascus race).
The build implied some surgery and some scratch-building,
but was pleasant, entertaining and rewarding, and as you know the starting
point was an inexpensive very old Italeri kit that was thus redeemed from a
dusty shelf demise or an obscure destiny. I purchased mine -during a Palm Springs desert trip-
at the Rare-plane Detective (thanks Liz and Jeff!).
If you would like to check the whole building sequence you
may go here:
The special decals were produced to their usual high
standards by Arctic Decals.
A photo-etched set was used (although only partially) to
enhance the interior and a few exterior details, with modifications.
My gratitude to Paolo Miana and Fabrizio D'Isanto who
provided data that helped with this project. Any mistakes made in the
representation are only mine.
It is like if I could almost hear those engines running,
getting ready to fly to glory.
