Fairchild 71 "Hell's Angels" Jean Harlow publicity plane - Khee-Kha Art Products 1/72nd vac

The 1930 “Hell’s Angels” was among the first multi-million, mega-production movies, backed by none other than Howard Hughes, as we know a prominent aviation figure. Jean Harlow, the passenger of the publicity plane, was the star. The photos gathered of this plane -in the movie guise- were all taken at Boeing Field, Seattle, as it landed with the star to promote the movie there.

This build was born from an idea of John Newcome for a themed group exhibit on celebrity and music bands planes. Among those suggested was this Fairchild, and since I already had a folder on it, a commitment was made.

I don’t have to elaborate on how difficult black & white photography color interpretation can be. All modelers and aviation scholars that venture in that territory know that you have to bring ample supply of aspirin. In this case the collaborative effort of the aforementioned modeler, plus Khee-Kha’s owner Lars Opland, aviation scholar Tim Kalina (to all my gratitude for their patience and aviation wisdom) and your humble, arrived to some preliminary provisional agreement on what the colors of that plane may have been. Still, it is an interpretation, if based on extensive exchange, much comparison with similar planes, analysis of information, movie memorabilia and no little head-scratching.

For such a publicity stunt, not much can be found on the Net about that plane. We collectively gathered what we could in regard of photos of this plane (NC24K) -in its movie guise and previous to it- and very similar airframes NC22K and NC25K, the latter used by The Cleveland News. Perhaps the correlated NC23K had a layout akin to these, but no photos so far were found of it.

Unfortunately Khee-Kha’s Fairchild 71 kit is now out of production, but I still had one in the stash, having bought three and built two (both posted on the blog, converted to FC-2W). I will add the links so you can peruse aspects of their construction, as each time I approached the build in a slightly different way:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2014/12/panagra-fairchild-fc-2w2-completed.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2014/07/172-khee-kha-art-products-vacuformed.html

Khee-Kha's website ( a source of vacs and resin accessories) can be found here:

https://www.opland-freeman.com/khee-kha/

So far we have found photos of three F.71 with those round windows instead of the conventional ones. The assumption being that this sort of corporate planes provided some privacy for a simple toilet facility for the VIPs they carried.

The kit therefore needs to be slightly modified to represent this plane: on the exterior the round windows, the deletion of the first door to the left of the pilot, adding two leading edge lights, exhaust muffs plus other minor details. The interior -in case you want to represent it- is speculative since no photos of it were found so far. Khee-Kha provides extensive instructions in the form of a several-page booklet with many building tips for vacs included. The kit includes a vacuformed windshield, clear plastic for the side windows, and a resin engine including prop and exhausts. 

Arctic Decals in Finland produces alternate sheets for other schemes, in case you have this kit.

 The kit comes in a bag with the accessories cleverly lodged inside the mold cavities. Great instructions:

 

 I won't be repeating here what I have already said in the posts linked above, nor photograph each step as I have already done that in those posts. If you feel curious about vacs, just consult the other posts for a more detailed depiction of the whole process.

The parts already removed from the backing sheet. Some of the windows and one door are deleted:

The hinge lines, tanks and partition lines are further engraved with an Olfa tool:

The putty applied to the last windows and door is sanded. An alternate set of LG legs is fashioned with brass Struts and a wrapping of thin styrene sheet. Tail group also more deeply engraved (the halves were thinned-down and are now glued). Wheel halves also assembled. Two small cuts can be seen on the aft fuselage following photos (perhaps inspection panels covered in clear material):

Extruded or injected styrene strut material from the spares could be also used to fabricate alternate legs:

For those of you that enjoy reading, here are contemporary ads and articles about the F.71:

 Supports for the floor are glued. The smaller section corresponds to the upper side of the door, which I think I may remove and pose open, hence the reinforcement, so the side doesn't break at that weak corner. Notice that only the aft side of the floor is provided, but since I will use my own approach to the joining of sides and nose, another section must be added, or I will use a substitute section spanning all the length:

The door is removed, and a clear piece of acrylic shaped. It will be later masked and painted to create the window in the door, and a handle added. This procedure could have been also used for the windows, i.e. creating a substitute clear strip for the area, glue it and mask the individual windows, but the whole thing would have been dangerously weakened:

All the windows carved:

Next, I think I will paint the interior color, then cut and fit individually the window panes from acrylic sheet, then add the tubular structure as suggested by Lars' instructions, trying to replicate well-appointed side panels, as this was a somewhat "VIP" transport (that means parts of the structure would be presumably covered by panels, the tubes only showing in the window areas). Some decisions will have to be made regarding the interior detail after that.

Tail wheel made as per kit's instructions:

Round windows, struts and wires anchoring points and other necessary locations are drilled:

Bu using the proper tools the right way, hours of sanding are reduced to minutes. Nonetheless, working carefully and checking frequently is the way to go:

And razor-sharp trailing edges are obtained:

We all know how Charles Atlas obtained his sculptured musculature: he built vacuformed models!

The non-relevant sections are excised from the wing halves:

 The nose halves are not reduced to their minimal expressions. This is partially a deviation from the instructions, but I found that I am more comfortable handling the assembly this way. You may follow the instructions of find your own way.

 The partial fus. sides are removed:

The "clear" sections are removed:

The engine and prop are being prepared. The exhausts are cut at the elbow to be able to add the specific ends pertinent to this plane, composed of muffs (styrene rod drilled) and the end sections (alu tube sanded in angle). They will be trimmed to size later:

The stabilizer incidence was adjustable, so there was a little visible gap between it and the fuselage, and sometimes between the fin and stab. This is considered as the parts are being prepared. Control horns added from a P.E. set:

Even the movie stars have to "go". Seats are made:

The wing halves are glued together. Little disks are place on top of the fuel tanks. The LE lights are carved. On the other side two little inspection windows are carved. The floor is extended to cover the front section:

Styrene, the Greek Muse of Modeling, bestowing her blessings upon the Fairchild 71:

The engine is prepared. The "pie" shield provided in the kit will be painted with the rest of the model:

Some basic colors are airbrushed:

A little detail is added:

One by one the individual windows are cut, adjusted and press fit. Some of them could be rolled down (hence the car-type rolling handles), so I will leave the front-left one off and later add a sliver of it at the bottom:

Now I can add over the clear windows he internal structure that is visible from outside, resting in the added "paneling" that was previously glued in as a doubler:

The door and open window are masked from inside. After painting, they are pushed in a bit and extracted:

The other windows are masked form outside:

The side of the parts facing inwards respect to the fuselage are also painted, as well as the inner side of the door (a source states simile-leather as upholstery). LG legs, engine shield and tailwheel are also airbrushed:

The nose halves are now joined, carefully sanded as to match the actual width of the fuselage where they meet, and at the front end making sure the engine-cum-exhaust can slide and match. Thin reinforcement strips are glued from inside at the upper and lower joints:

Preparing the elements for the "inferred" restroom for the diva:

Basic color airbrushed on the floor and what will be the front and back walls of the (speculative) restroom:

Once the nose was completed and painted, I had to add the inst. pan. I looked to see if an appropriate tool/tweezers maybe on the market, found none, and finally bent one that wasn't great to start with to obtain a flat 90degrees one, so I could gently grip, insert and glue the i.p. comfortably (as I couldn't do "from below" as normal):

A firewall is cut, adjusted and installed:

The engine sub-assembly is dry-fit to ensure that all goes well. Fortunately it does:

A small section of floor is made to support the joystick and rudder pedals. A few P.E. simulating trim wheel, throttle and such will be installed later on the sides of the nose:

The "restroom" bulkheads are glued at the proper angle. A toilet and sink, already fabricated, will be added, but that will be that, as nothing of this will be ever visible even as a glimpse. So my usual additions of toiled roll, mirror, first aid kit and such will be obviated this time. Sorry to disappoint my Toilet Fan Club!:

The washing basin flipped over, so the passenger could seat on the toilet. There was a clever arrangement so water wouldn't spill:

The main fuselage is partially assembled:

The nose will be adjusted to match the rest and glued:

The fuselage top is adjusted and glued:

The nose is glued:

Sized comparison with the Short Scion also in progress. In the background an Aeroclub vac of the GAL Monospar:

Now the wing can have its dry-runs:

Wing glued and model ready for a coat of primer. A smallish tail bumper was installed as well as the main landing gear -made of brass "Strutz", material that will also be used for the wing and stab struts -lengths here in the photo held by clothespins- . For this material, which is now out of production, I am grateful to John Adams -of Aeroclub fame- and Andrew Nickeas, who kindly provided a supply for my voracious scratch needs. The two circular windows were plugged with short segments of wood dowel. The kit had molded nose louvers, which were a bit eroded after general sanding, so this will be recreated with resin Archer louvers, applied before painting:

The light cream color is airbrushed:

After masking the cream areas (wing, tail, and lower/aft  fuselage, the following color will be burgundy. I will wait for the commissioned set from Arctic Decals to better match the paint to the decals color, as the regs. seem to have been painted in that tone. Wing tanks, sometimes left metal color, look painted over on this plane.

There is a Hollywood story (perhaps apocryphal) that never made it to the tabloids, about another movie star that supposedly had a terrible feud with Jean Harlow. Her name may have been Jessica, Gemma, or Jessa Wells. The rumor is that Wells used to get to Harlow by hijacking her plane, flying it for junkets and forays all over the place. Here is a scale figure of this Jessa (or Gemma, or Jessica, or Jemaima, or Jessoline) Wells, to illustrate the story. Sources state she had quite the character, hidden under a veil of innocence and naïve demeanor. She -it is said- could chop your head off by uttering a single sentence. She was extremely fond of mint candy, the only thing –we are told- that would appease her. Her career -as one would have guessed- was tempestuous. She starred in movies like “Shipwreck at the Pool Bar”, “Pirates of the Cachaça”, “The drink that killed a whole forest”, “Pristine who?” and the memorable “I always wanted to visit California”. 

Here we see the poor Jean Harlow running after Wells, that trespassed into the plane's repair hangar to squeeze inside as a stowaway:

Needless to say Wells got away (she always somehow did).

(A pause here whilst a wait for some supplies)

To be continued...