"Spirit of Africa" - Sikorsky S.39 - CMR 1/72nd resin

 

Here is Spirit of Africa, a plane made famous for its participation in exploration and documentary work in Africa and Borneo by its owners, Martin and Osa Johnson. It had a "giraffe" decoration, which made it immediately recognizable. Another Sikorsky (an S.38) participated in some of the trips, carrying a zebra finish.

This is the second model I made from the CMR kit, the first, a Varney Air Ferries plane, can be seen here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2021/12/sikorsky-s39-varney-air-ferries-cmr.html

And the impressions are the same: a superb work on the making of the masters of this kit, with amazing detail, hardly seen in kits (in spite this is a not a new release by any means). The master-maker deserves my total admiration and gratitude for tackling such a complex project. On the other hand, and given the known limitations of this type of resin kits (but not some newer ones, that are cutting edge, like the SBS' releases) the assembly is challenging, laborious, and many times difficult, having to substitute parts and improvise technical solutions. Not for every modeler, this one is, and if you have this kit, firstly: congratulations, as it is a jewel of detail, and secondly: boy oh boy, strap yourself, this is going to be a long and bumpy ride.

This plane did not have the shield over the engine front, nor the "funnel" intake over it, but it did have an oil cooler added later to avoid overheating in the hot African/Borneo climate

The account of the issues, solutions, joys and struggles is here in the step-by-step building article:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2021/09/sikorsky-s39-cmr-172nd-resin.html

I am very glad I was able, against some odds, to complete these two models with some degree of success, since once built, they certainly do look the part.

Following suit is the S.38 from the same manufacturer, a mold not nearly as detailed, with more than one casting issue in my sample, some challenging engineering, and with a lot of work to do if you want to have a good landing. It's here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2021/12/inter-island-airways-kauai-sikorsky-s38.html

 

 

I made the "Spirit of Africa" model for Toby, my friend David's dog, who is inclined to read complex mathematics and has a pinch for scale models: