Caudron Goéland "Ric et Rac" Paris-Saigon flight - RS 1/72nd

 

Well, now this all done and dusted, I have to say that this is a nice kit, but no doubt requires an experience modeler able to sort some hurdles and several fit issues. If you complement it with masks and a photo-etched set, you will have a very nice model -if you put the care it needs.

As we know, this model represents the Caudron Goéland F-AOMX (crewed by Challe-Brill-Henry) that participated in a Paris-Saigon-Paris race that did not go well, at all. The race at the moment of departure had only three participants, the above-mentioned plane, another Caudron Goéland of different type (F-AOMS) (crewed by Arnoux-Japy-Micheletti), and the only Breguet Fulgur ever built, F-APDY (crew Détroyat-Durmon-Agnus-Dessaigne). It is of note that different publications may add a crew member, or change the name of a crew member, and have different spellings for the same names, in true bad journalistic tradition: never let reality interfere with your account.

The "race" (more like a fiasco) ended up midway to Saigon, when all planes had a number of mechanical failures. F-AOMX even had to return to Le Bourget for repairs and start again. Reliability -the same thing that was supposed to be demonstrated- wasn't present at all.

The kit as mentioned is fairly amicable, workable, lends itself to detailing and provides plenty to satisfy most modelers. That being said, the release (even having the decals for the race that include the cute "Ric et Rac" dogs) basically portrays the military versions, which is incorrect for this particular plane. To be fair, the kit provides resin parts to cover some of those needed changes. If the modeler is keen to have a more accurate model, some things need deleting, adding or changing. The decal sheet, even being nice, is missing surely two, or even perhaps four number "2" that photos clearly show under the wing tips and were most likely above them too. I had to commission those additional decals (plus yet another 2 for the rudder that I deem blue instead of black as present on the sheet) from Arctic Decals in Finland. If affected by OCD, the cabin back right door could be deleted as it wasn't present in this particular plane, the exhausts need some changes, the antennas do not apply (but the Pitot does), some vents and air intakes have other locations and shape, etc. All this has been described in the step-by-step building post where you will also find contemporary publications depicting the plane and the race:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2023/03/caudron-c448-goeland-paris-saigon-paris.html

It was love at first sight when I saw this "Ric et Rac" kit (for details on them also go to the build post). I knew I would make my friends David the Tall and Christos of Spanakopita happy.

I am glad I bought the kit and built it, even it was a somewhat challenging build at times. I hope RS Models would release more civil Goélands, perhaps with modified parts to account for the changes.

My thanks to Jörgen Stendahl, who pioneered this specific plane with an exquisite model even before it was released in this guise by RS, and to Mika Jernfors of Arctic Decals who produced the missing decals needed for an accurate representation.