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

 

 (The completed model is here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2024/11/bellanca-28-70-macrobertson-racer-dekno.html

The Bellanca 28-70 “The 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 re-typed 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). “The 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 Australia (the same destination for MacRobertson the race) to demonstrate the superiority of his plane, but had to abandon in the way due to mechanical reasons:

 

Clips of the plane where you can see details and changes over time:

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 publications (and models). 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 and trimmed close to the image (full carrier):

Accurate color calls:

Parts:

Detail on the fuselage sides:

Nice, subtle ribbing:

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

The prop, once removed, may be treated to a few passes of a sanding stick on the blades to make them smoother:

The cockpit floor required making a few notches on its sides 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, but I like to live dangerously:

Drying and separating the smaller parts. Beware, do not lose any, some are tiny (joysticks, tailwheel, 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, but also 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:

 Base colors airbrushed. As I could not find any information on colors or even photos of the interior, shades of neutral grey with details picked up in metal, wood and black will be the approach:

The airbrush decided to practice some spattering on its own while painting the fuselage insides, so the halves needed the enamel removed. A cleaner called "Simple Green" did a good job in just a few hours:

Decals are applied to the inst. pan. and radio/finder consoles. Engine is being painted:

The protrusion at the back of the engine that keys on the front fuselage recess needed trimming back around a bit for it to plug correctly. Or you could carve the recess a little to accept it:

On my sample the base of the inst. pan. had to be shortened by 1mm or so, and the sides of the panel trimmed back to obtain a good fit. 

The fuselage is closed. I had to work a little bit extra on the instrument panel, cutting 1mm more at its base and shaving some more around. Otherwise the halves themselves were a very good fit:

In order to hide the seam at the headrest thin styrene is cut to shape. I plan to leave the two cockpit seat positions open (they hinge to the left):

A note on the wheel covers: we have already established that often The Irish Swoop did not use those. At some point, while in Croydon and close to the departure day (that wasn't to be, as mentioned above) the plane is seen with alternate, partial LG covers not extending to the legs, just covering the wheel. We see a protrusion as the cover "wraps" closely around the main leg following its contour. This perhaps could be simulated vacuforming styrene flat over a metal rod:

The approach could be something like this:

Perhaps with a slightly smaller diameter rod or tube:

Before gluing the main components together, all rigging anchoring points and control cable locations are drilled with a fine drill at the approximate angles that the wires come in. At the same time two fuel/oil caps on top of the front fuselage are punched from thin styrene and glued, as well as round panel in front of the second post in the belly.

I found long ago this photo online, don't remember where, but as I also built the HP42, I look forward to a photo session with it if all goes well:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2019/09/hadley-page-hp42-hercules-modified.html

NOTE: Now here is a conundrum. Some sources state that the reconstructed Irish Swoop (re-christened "Dorothy") used by Mollison for his Atlantic flight was re-typed 28-90 and given a more powerful P&W R-1830 Twin Wasp (as I stated above). But all contemporary accounts, and even photos, show exactly the same engine as The Irish Swoop, P&W R-1535 Twin Wasp Junior. What changed is that "Dorothy" used a different NACA cowl. The more powerful engine, again according to contemporary accounts, was planned for the (never materialized) New York- Paris race:

 

 The 28-90, with changes and the bigger 1830 engine is the later type that was sold to China and ended up also in Mexico.

 Horns are added to the rudder from an aftermarket set:

Waiting now to do some priming together with another projects to take advantage of the airbrush session.

 

The first coat of primed revealed as usual small areas than need addressing:

 More work ensues:

White is airbrushed:

 You may see that I left the two belly "posts" out for the moment to facilitate painting and handling.

Now is the turn of the transparencies. Two are provided. I partially messed one, but in any case I will be combining both to obtain  what I think is a good shape for it. Two of the sections will be displayed open, hinged to the right. Here they were cut, washed and given a bath in floor polish. Instead of mask and paint them, I will resort to stripes of white decal:

The wing light covers are provided in the clear vac sheet too, but I will go some other way: home-made lenses and scotch tape covers.

Green is airbrushed. A fair enamel match for the green in the decals is Humbrol 2 or Testors Gloss Green. I opened a brand new Humbrol 2 tintlet and the paint was a total mess, separated into an oily liquid and a rubbery blob that no mixing would fix. The lid was tight, the paint bought no long ago. This is not the first time I experience Humbrol inconsistencies, where the same color bought at different times would have a completely different viscosity (from too thin to paste) or even hues (case in point Humbrol Gloss 41, which varies from almost white to too yellowy cream). I ended up using Testors Gloss Green. Later the green will be masked and the white re-applied on the overspray areas:

Masks on and white re-spray:

Masks off:

Landing gear, posts, tail rigging, aileron and rudder cables and home-made landing lights added:

Very small aftermarket nav lights will be used on the wingtips:

Decals in progress:

If you are not displaying the engine alone -without the cowl- as it appears in some photos, then to fit the engine inside the cowl you will have to do some sanding down -a bitmore on the front row of cylinders- little by little, evenly around, until you get a good fit. Once the engine is secured to the cowl, then the exhausts can be added, before gluing the sub-assembly to the model nose, which is keyed:

A little more progress. Still to add are the wing lights covers, the wing rigging, a couple of decals, all four canopy sections (that I separated), nav lights on wingtips and both sides of the fin... etc.

Now completed and waiting for good weather to do the photo-session:

Besides the hinged canopy sections, some photos show these two parts removed (they had a piano hinge). So that´s also a display option for the canopy, gluing only the windscreen and the middle section.

 (The completed model is here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2024/11/bellanca-28-70-macrobertson-racer-dekno.html