"Easter Egg" Kingcobra racer - 1949- Modified Dora Wings 1/72nd scale + Draw Decals

 

Here is the oddly and perkily-colored “Easter Egg” Kingcobra flown by Charles Tucker as it appeared in the National Air Races in 1949.

This conversion of the Dora Wings kit is not too demanding but requires attention to delete some details not pertinent to this specific plane. The original was a “C” model with the ventral fin removed, and I followed the same path with the kit. The color, judging from the few color photos available, was a mix of pink and purple that I replicated using Humbrol gloss 200 and Testors Gloss Purple enamels. The decals as mentioned are from Draw Decals. Here is the step-by-step building article:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2024/01/bell-p-63-kingcobra-easter-egg-racer.html

This model was built in parallel with an earlier version (1946) of the same plane, “Flying Red Horse” for the transcontinental race, with wingtip tanks:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2024/01/flying-red-horse-kingcobra-racer-bendix.html

How particular Dora Wings kits are. On one hand extremely well detailed, beautiful panel lines, clear transparencies, helpful P.E. frets and great subjects. On the other a not always functional engineering, some fit issues, at times confusing instructions, and problematic vinyl masks. Trying to squeeze as many versions as possible by means of exchangeable modules created in the case of the P-63 a situation confusing at times, depicting in the instructions occasionally the wrong parts and even the wrong part numbers, with some fit issues and or carrying features from one version to the next that don’t belong. The Dora Wings kits I have built (several of them, all featured in this blog) asked for a few corrections/fixes, but with attention and just a bit of work turned into satisfying models.

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2021/04/cape-cod-distance-record-bellanca.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2023/08/bell-p-63-kingcobra-hosler-sohio-racer.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2021/05/bellanca-ch300-cf-atn-floatplane.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2021/03/bellanca-j-300-liberty-modified-dora.html

 Granted, almost all kits do need certain amount of work and many times corrections. So… great in certain areas but mildly challenging in others, with beautiful surfaces but with the odd accuracy issue, engineering that sometimes helps and sometimes hinders, fit that is superb or not adequate -all in the same kit- depending where, etc. A sort of a Kit Conundrum. All those sporadic problems can be improved upon, and I hope that’s the case, as their civil products cater for us starving civilized modelers. Being an Ukrainian company, they deserve all our support, which I try to provide in a very minor way buying and building their kits, and hoping to help fellow modelers to deal with that little amount of hiccups in their kits. I have seen all sorts of kits in my long modeling life. In just the 400+ models posted here in this blog you will see all kinds of kits and manufacturers, from the simplest to the more complex. From the known to the unknown, mainstream to cottage industry, resin, long run, short run, vacuform, even photo-etched. I have built veritable kit horrors, and a lot of so-so kits, and compared to them Dora Wings looks like gold, so don’t think they are difficult kits, just that here and there they will require your attention to fix issues and the odd oversights, again, as most kits will. I see them improving a lot and the level of detail is really nice. I do have in the stash for future articles their civil Savoia S.55* and their Percival Vega Gull and Percival Proctor.

*I wish they would have done the more known passenger-carrying types of the S.55 (there were several), as the very old Delta 2 kit is a sad brick nowadays. Perhaps in the future, fingers crossed.