Scale aviation modeller international

found and ordered two magnificent

aftermarket conversion kits by

Plus model of the Czech Republic:

a cockpit interior set (#AL7001),

and a port engine set (#AL7003).

Even though they ended up costing

more than the kit itself, they are

beautifully crafted resin and photo-

etch model kits in themselves. The

port engine kit does come with too

many cylinders (an 18-cylinder

R-2800 engine instead of the

correct 14-cylinder R-2000), but I

figured it would be so obscured in

my maintenance diorama that few,

if any, would notice (and I wasn’t

too anxious to try and replace

it with yet another aftermarket

bank of cylinders). But I put that

fact in here just for the record.

My research also turned

up several Caribou websites

with a huge amount of helpful

information, especially Scott

Hemsley’s extensive kit review

at hedgehoghollow.com. His

review includes the wonderful

find of many Vietnam Caribou

photos on Captain Peter A. Bird’s

homepage, petester.com.

Thanks to those aids, I knew to

address several items: increasing

the kit’s wing dihedral, adding a

small stall strip to the front edge of

each wing (near the landing lights),

adding outer engine nacelle wing

lights, and adding extra, opposing

pitot tubes to each nacelle side.

BUILDING A CARGO BAY

The kit provides a choice of simple

black window decals (assuming

you fill in and sand over the oval

kit windows) or clear plastic

window strips with a red cargo

net decal (backed by a solid black

decal strip, if desired). But that’s it.

Since I was going to all the trouble

to install a detailed aftermarket

resin cockpit and a detailed

aftermarket open port engine, I

just couldn’t ignore the cargo bay.

So I cut out and opened up

the rear cargo doors, and began

scratch-building the cargo bay. I

used part of the floor and several

of the cargo net seats from

Revell’s 1/72 scale C-54/DC-4

kit, scratch-built the bay ceiling

from sheet styrene, and added

extras like fire extinguishers

and warning markings.

I scratch-built some of the

interior rear fuselage structure

with various parts from my spares

boxes. I also scratch-built the

sides, floor, lifts and rear panel

of the lower cargo door. To help

show off the interior, I also cut

out the port rear side passenger

door, replacing it with a new

door made from sheet styrene,

and scratch-built a portable

door access ladder, as shown in

photos of Ansett’s Caribou.

FINAL ASSEMBLY

After closing up the fuselage

and filling and sanding fuselage

seams, I used small strips of

sheet styrene in the lower wing

joins to help increase the wing

dihedral. I also used the kit cockpit

canopy (attached with white

glue) to mask the cockpit during

painting, as I was going to replace

it with one of the two nice (and

more correct) vac-form canopies

supplied in the Plus Models

aftermarket resin cockpit set.

PAINTING AND DECALING

Because the aftermarket decal

sheet doesn’t include any white

backgrounds, I cut out and (lightly)

taped black and white photocopies

of the decals to the fuselage and

tail. These served as templates to

help mask where I needed to paint

70 • APRIL 2018 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL

068-73-FEAT-CivilWings-0418.indd 70 09/03/2018 16:08