Bellanca 28-70 MacRobertson racer - Dekno 1/72nd resin + 3D-printed

 

The Bellanca 28-70 “Irish Swoop” was a plane specifically tailored for the 1934 England to Australia MacRobertson race, taking advantage of previous design and research work at the firm that didn’t have the chance to materialize. Pilot Fitzmaurice had the backing of the Irish Hospitals Trust’s “Irish Sweepstakes”, hence the decoration of the plane. In 1936 –after crashing and being as a “28-90”- it will become, with modifications, Mollison’s “Dorothy” and cross the Atlantic from the US to England. The design will be known as the “Flash” and a number were sold, again with modifications according to the buyer’s specs, some to China and some ending up in Mexico after having been assigned, but not delivered, to the Spanish Republicans (completely unrelated –and rather the opposite- to US republicans, fyi). “Irish Swoop” unfortunately couldn’t participate in the race, partially because of technical issues, and it’s believed that partially because the British establishment wasn’t very happy about Fitzmaurice using an American design. He had claimed at some point that no local one was good enough (Fitzmaurice was threatened with disqualification even way before the race for trying to use a “not locally certified plane” according to sources). 

 

After being refused the qualification (and even the trial to be certified) Fitzmaurice embarked on a flight to demonstrate the superiority of his plane, but had to abandon due to mechanical reasons:

 

Clips of the plane:

https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/41598/

https://digital.tcl.sc.edu/digital/collection/MVTN/id/1462/rec/1

https://digital.tcl.sc.edu/digital/collection/MVTN/id/6863/rec/2 

As side note, Bellanca built several one-off planes. Many years ago I scratchbuilt the Bellanca 28-92 trimotor that flew in the Bendix:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2012/12/scratchbuilt-bellanca-trimotor-completed.html

This is another scratchbuilt of the long-distance, also one-off, the Bellanca Model K:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2015/04/scratch-built-172nd-scale-bellanca.html

This beautiful Bellanca 28/70 by Dekno Models in 1/72^nd scale fills a gap in any Golden Era racing collection and especially for those modelers that have already built MacRobertson racers and want to increase their stable of such machines. In my case I already have the known DH88s:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2015/09/ded-havilland-dh88-black-magic-racer.html

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2019/01/de-havilland-dh88-comet-kp-172-completed.html

The DH89 Dragon Rapide “Tainui”:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2018/06/de-havilland-dh89-tainui-macrobertson.html

The Granville Q.E.D.:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2023/05/gee-bee-r6h-qed-172nd-plastic-passion.html

and the Pander Postjager:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2011/09/pander-postjager.html

 The 28-70 is a complex design that Dekno rendered cleverly with a mix of resin and 3D-printed parts, plus (2, 1 of which is a spare) vacuformed transparencies. A sharp, nice set by Arctic Decals completes the package. Dekno has evolved a long way and this kit has good surface detail with stringers and ribs subtly and convincingly rendered. The engine and exhausts are good for the scale and the latter even have their ends hollowed. Minute surface detail is also well represented. Even better: Dekno correctly described the gold color of the cowl, inaccurately depicted as green in many drawings and publication. The fuselage inner sides and cockpit floor also have detail. As it is usual with this kind of kit, some cursory cleaning is necessary on the bigger resin parts (leading edges) and the tongue-and-socket locating devices need some minor filing to properly fit (wings and stabs) as well as some adjusting of the cockpit floor fit . Unlike other cottage industry resin kits, the surfaces are free from pinholes, bubbles, short pours and excrescences. The engine could be posed as cowl-less (as it appears in many photos) or its cylinder tops should be sanded down a bit to fit inside the cowl comfortably. All in all a nice kit of a very attractive plane.

All well packed and protected:

Nice, sharp decal sheet. The subjects need to be carefully cut individually (full carrier):

Accurate color calls:

Parts:

Detail on the fuselage sides:

Nice, subtle ribbing:

Watch out while removing the radio console, it has thin legs and some structure:

The cockpit floor required making a few notches to clear structural detail:

And deepen a bit the recesses on the other side to allow a good fit with the locating rails on the fuselage:

All parts are washed with a brush inside a coffee filter mesh, carefully. You may want to do this while the small parts are still attached to their blocks:

Drying and separating the smaller parts. Beware, do not lose any, some are tiny (joysticks, airscoop, Pitot, aileron actuators):

There are no suggestions on the instructions for the interior colors but I found this B&W graphic:

The Irish Swoop is seen sometimes in photos as mentioned without the cowl, no wheel covers and -presumable during early trials- even without leading edge lights, which may have been a required addition for the race. It did have very small nav lights on wingtips and fin.

This wire, visible in good photos, needs to be added to the landing gear:

 

To be continued...