The beautiful lines of the Short Crusader didn’t help much with its performance, nor did the manufacturer’s choice of a radial engine over the predominant inline arrangement for the Schneider trophy. An unfortunate problem with the aileron rigging meant that after being assembled in Venice for the actual race it hit the water as soon as it took off, the pilot thankfully escaping unscathed.
After no little fuzzing here is Karaya’s Short Crusader. To arrive to a happy conclusion some hurdles had to be dealt with. Do not follow Karaya’s box artwork, as the blue struts are associated with an early stage in life of the plane that did not have the tail number as depicted, and used a wood prop. The artwork would be accurate if the struts were white (painted so after a repair) and the prop metal, as seen in Venice, and if it did have the red stripes over the floats (not provided on the decal sheet). The cylinder “helmets” need the prominent undercuts and a little carving -as seen in photos- to be accurate. These corrections and additions shouldn’t be a problem for an experienced modeler (the only kind of modeler that should be dealing with this type of kit anyway). For a full description of the caveats and some contemporary reference material you may visit the step-by-step building post:
https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2026/09/short-crusader-schneider-trophy-karaya.html
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