The Little World

The conversion of old military aircraft to civilian mode was quite a thing back in the late 40’s and early 50’s.

There were a great many spare aircraft left over from the conflict – despite the fact that so many were shot down and wrecked. Careful buying by Ruritanian agents in Europe brought a number of serviceable planes to the Royal Ruritanian Airline fleet.

The Caproni C 311 was originally a medium bomber but once you remove 400Kg of bombs plus their racks you can seat five passengers and a tank of turnip brandy. If the plane is a little slow, a little draughty, and a little noisy, a cup of the old TB soon soothes the passengers.

The kit’s fuselage sides fit together very well indeed, the wings went on as firm as fenceposts, and the tail ended up plumb and true. The only odd feature has proved to be the engine nacelles.

These are the first I have seen on a model kit that are split in the middle for the wings. Normally I would expect part of the nacelle to be moulded in the wing – usually the top half – and a seam effected at the heading edge of the wing. Not here – you slide the completed assembly in from outboard and secure it with four nubs on the wing surface. Surprisingly good fit, but the final wrap-around needed some fair pressure from a clothes peg and some ambitious seam filling.

The whole thing puts you very much in mind of an Avro Anson or an Airpseed Oxford – contemporaries on the airfields. Certainly here in Australia Ansons got quite a hammering as small feeder airliners for country airports. Pictures of passengers clambering into them with tiny stepladders are funny, but were common for the day.

I don’t know if any of them had turnip brandy bars…