Airspeed Envoy "Stella Australis" - RS 1/72nd kit conversion

Here is the ill-fated Stella Australis* finally completed. I have chosen this plane because I love Hawai’i, the intended final destination of its last flight. In a way, we are always about to arrive to Hawai’i as we are always about to arrive to Ixtlán. For the step-by-step building article and some historical notes please go here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2024/04/airspeed-envoy-modified-rs-models-172nd.html

In spite of RS Model good intentions, you can build this kit into a nice replica of VH-UXY ONLY if you do your research and modify the kit to more faithfully reproduce this machine. If you build the kit as it is, you will still get a pretty looking model -if you are one that doesn’t bother much with accuracy – but you will get a replica that is not really a representation of the original plane. Mind you, some of these changes are quite visible, most notably a completely different interior that includes a long-range fuel tank and a radio station, different back door, a different window arrangement, a ribbed wing (that is, not the plywood-covered one the kit depicts) and partially the color scheme, plus of course some external details like no wing lights, different exhaust ends and other miscellanea).

Still, I celebrate these civil releases, and commend RS for giving us the possibility of building the several civil options they present. To reward them, I bought two of these kits, as I would like to do another civil one, perhaps a civil Japanese machine if possible.

RS provides alternate parts to cover a range of marks for this plane, which as usual produces a bit of head-scratching and parts-juggling, plus some accuracy concerns that need solving. Once again, dear manufacturers: the recourse of slapping civil regs on a military airframe doesn’t make them necessarily accurate. But hey, the good intentions are there nonetheless, which merits some recognition. Regarding the build, some areas will be challenging (the main being the side transparencies engineering), and of course the accuracy issues for almost all the versions you can build with this boxing (again the problem being mostly the plywood wing). I guess we can’t ask perfection form a kit manufacturer, but I would like just a little more research on their part. But with patience, a bit of skill and persistence, you can obtain a nice model from this kit. The long list of comments about this kit, the needed modifications, deletions and additions to make it represent the original plane can be consulted in the step-by-step building post (link at the beginning).

*Stella Australis (in spite of Ulm’s nationality) is not -as erroneously translated sometimes in aviation accounts- “Star of Australia”, but Latin for Southern Star; same as in “Aurora Australis” (opposite to Borealis, northern).