The Little World

Not so much like a lizard drinking- just flat out like thin paint.

The two colours of the Coastal Command upperwoirks are now down on the Cat – both courtesy of the fine set of paints gifted to me. The experiment of using Rapid and Regular Gunze lacquer thinners on the Model Master paints seems to have been a success. They are, however, dead flat.

Now I need to build the beaching gear to justify this aircraft sitting on the apron of a seaplane base. Had I purchased an earlier model of Academy Catalina this might have come in the box. as it is, I have a copy of MODEL AIRCRAFT from 2021 that shows another chap’s build of a PBY and I can learn from his gear.

The use of this form of land support eliminates the need to pack the nose of the ship with lead. The model is a notorious tail-sitter and the amount of fore-weight is enough to overstress the little nose landing gear of the later types.

Had the previous owner of the kit decided to cement the wing floats in the down position I would have followed suit and built a water base for it. As they are up, I have had to search the records for the sight of a similar aircraft on dry land. It looks as though the servicing of the engines was a bit of a precarious thing, with walkways suspended from the wings.