The Little World

I am trying not to be discouraged by the Airfix DC3/C47 kit. I have chosen wisely to make it into a closed kit – the door fitting on the port side is truly appalling.

Or perhaps I am looking at it from the wrong perspective – in the original form it has three mini-guns and crew in the rear and if you open the door wide you get to see them. So you can’t tell that the doors don’t fit…

Well, they fit when I make ’em fit. I approximated the cargo and then the passenger door and flooded thin cement in, choosing at least one edge to be in close proximity. Then I turned it over and cemented Evergreen plastic strip in the big gaps. Finally Vallejo putty was syringed into the open parts and left to dry. It is not perfect, but the Aéronavale insignia will cover most of the joints.

The wings are fairly good except the port one has a giant gap between the wing root and the fuselage – it will need filling with plastic strip and probably a fillet of cyanoacrylate. I guess kids of the 60’s and 70’s didn’t really worry about basic fit issues too much.

The engine nacelles and undercarriage wells are also a surprise. These were done very well in the Italeri C-47 with firm basis for the landing gear legs either up or down.

Airfix have tried to be clever by offering legs that can be raised and lowered at will, but they make for some rather imprecise shapes and a bare wing well.

I am betting that the final job will also need a fair amount of filler to appear acceptable. It is what it is…

But, gloom aside, the simple cockpit does actually work. The two little orange-clad Frenchmen are in there and when you close the fuselage they look out very convincingly. They have no control wheels, pedals, or instruments to worry them – they are optimists.