The Little World

The mental picture of the 1930’s airliner can sometimes be very complex.

One thinks of some of the French or British airlines that operated out of Hendon or Le Bourget and sees large biplanes or sesquiplanes with dangling nacelles, spatted wheels, and flying wires everywhere. Yet here is a 30’s ship that is the epitome of sleek design. In my evocation there is an exposed motor but in most it was inside a sleek cowling.

The very enclosed nature of the cockpit means that the construction sequence for this plane will require some heavy masking over the clear styrene until after the main colours are sprayed. The windows are also masked off. The exact colours of the plane are a mystery, as there is no colour illustration of it that I can see. However, I am prepared to hazard a guess and say the B/W photo shows a blue fuselage and a silver wing. In any case, I shall make it so to contrast with the Loose Goose.

The decals will be inkjet printed – the white against blue being the only difficulty. I am banking that I can duplicate the Japanese blue closely enough to hide the carrier film. At least I don’t have to fight struts when I do the underwing codes.