Caudron Simoun New York-Tierra del Fuego flight attempt - Modified Heller 1/72nd

Once again the gracile figure of the Caudron Simoun cruises the modeling skies. An old but beautiful Heller item released in 1978 (45 years ago to the date), it is still a nice little kit that has nothing to envy to scores of contemporary and even newer kits. There were so many civil users of it that the modeler will have plenty of choices for decorating schemes, and many of them accomplished great feats of aviation, being historically significant.

I used to complete the build a set by Arctic Decals that covers the masks and the "metal" frames, and a decal sheet from Model Art (MAD006) that includes the plane represented -and many more.

In this build (which is not my first one of the Simoun, a kit I love)

-The interior was modified to match the original plane, including the long distance fuel tank

-The flaps were lowered

-The cabin door was opened

-A window was opened

-The nose side vents were opened

-A resin aftermarket rendition of the Renault 6Q Bengali engine was installed in the opened nose.

I repeat here what was said in the building thread: the spaces between the stab and the fuselage should not be puttied or made disappear, as you would do with a wing-to-fuselage seam, as the Simoun had an adjustable stab, and those thin gaps are present in the real model.

This plane, piloted by no other than Saint Exupery and accompanied by Prévost, attempted to fly from New York to Tierra del Fuego in Argentina, but unfortunately fell short (quite literally) in Guatemala, due to a very silly (but ultimately grave) mistake in the type of Gallon used to fuel the plane, that due to being overweight could not take off and crashed.

My thanks to Alex Karatzas who sent a photograph of this specific Simoun from his personal collection that helped to clarify a couple points.

The building process and some historical background can be consulted here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2023/01/caudron-c635-simoun-heller-172nd-scale.html