Monogram Wright Bros. Kitty Hawk

I mentioned in my post on the Revell Sopwith Triplane that I did not like biplanes as a kid - at all. Imagine my disappointment then, when at a fifth-grade Christmas gift exchange in late December 1975, I unwrap a Monogram Wright Brothers Kitty Hawk. Not only is it a biplane, but a really, really old biplane! I was so put out by the whole thing; especially since a couple of my classmates got really cool models like the Monogram F-15 Eagle, and Revell A-5 Vigilante. Why did I get stuck with the Kitty Hawk!
I took it home and figured I'd put it together just for something to do. I didn't care to make the effort or take the time to line up all the struts properly, and the thing came out looking pretty sad. It didn't last long in my collection.
For my rebuild project, I'm not skipping over any airplane kits just because I didn't like them originally. So, I built a new Kitty Hawk and actually enjoyed it this time. Now I appreciate the engineering of this kit, having studied the instructions and followed each step by the letter. I even rigged the thing with original Monogram thread from an old Grumman Gulfhawk. The rigging really enhances the realism on this model, but is also a pain to apply. Only a few parts need painting on this model which is a bonus considering the time spent on the rigging.
Monogram (now Revell-Monogram) has been cranking this kit out since the late 1950s, and I could have easily purchased a new one; but I chose to get a 1973 "white box" version just like the one I had back in '75. There are lots of these available on EBay really cheap, perhaps because many kids like myself weren't interested in antique airplanes, and passed on it. It's a very educational model though, since the builder gets to see in miniature just how the original plane was designed and how it worked. It's still not a favorite of mine, but I like it a little better now than I did before.

Monogram U.S. Navy DC-3

In 1975 Monogram re-released three airplane model kits they passed over in '73 when they reissued almost their entire catalog of aircraft: the Lockheed Constellation, Ford Trimotor, and Douglas DC-3. For all three the markings and box art were updated. For instance, the original TWA Connie became a USAF C-121, the TWA Trimotor was dressed in current Island Airlines livery, and the TWA DC-3 became a U.S. Navy R4-D.
I remember seeing all three at Gemco, but the only one I bought was the Navy DC-3. My original was mostly unpainted and the Navy markings didn't stay on very long.
This rebuild presented the opportunity to dress it up in all the proper colors including white upper fuselage, red tail stripe, and shiny chrome silver to enhance the bare-metal surfaces. I think it turned out pretty good. Monogram's odd-scale DC-3 is I think the oldest plastic assembly kit of the DC-3, having originally come out in the mid 1950s. The basic shape of the airplane looks accurate, but it suffers from poor-fitting parts, and exaggerated rivet lines. It's hard to cover these old imperfections with an updated paint scheme and Navy decals. The kit lends itself better to the original TWA version, which can easily be slapped together in short order without any paint at all. Still, I like this 1975 reissue because it brings back good memories of the summer of '75 on Avenue J-5 in Lancaster. I flew my original DC-3 around the house and neighborhood quite a bit, racking up many hours of flight time, just like a real DC-3.

Lindberg 1/48 Me-262 With All the Bells and Whistles!

Lindberg's large-scale action model kits were very popular in the late 1950s, and early sixties. By the time I was building models in the mid-70s, Lindberg was still cranking out their most popular kits including this Messerschmitt Me-262 twin-jet WWII fighter-bomber. It has lots of working features such as opening canopy, engine access covers, machine-gun bay access covers, working flight surfaces, and retractable landing gear. The first time I built this kit I loved it! The working parts really made this a fun model to play with, plus, it was very educational. With a model like this, a young kid could have an intimate working knowledge of the major systems of this airplane. Unfortunately, action model kits didn't endure much into the 1970s. By then, the kids who built the first plastic kits in the 50s were highly experienced builders, and demanded better accuracy and detail from model companies. Working parts tended to impede on external accuracy, so things like dropping bombs, retractable gear, moving flaps and such became a thing of the past. Lindberg's Me-262 can still be bought today, but it's nowhere near as accurate or realistic looking as say, Tamiya's or even Monogram's.
But if one wants to build something just for the fun of putting hinged airplane parts together and playing with them afterwards, this is the one!
The Me-262 pictured here is the fourth one I've built in my lifetime. All four I've done are the Lindberg 1974 reissue (box pictured above.)I love the sound of a sealed Lindberg model kit. Almost always the parts are all loose off the trees, and rattle around in the box. Oh, what a sweet sound!
Typical of Lindberg, they don't give much painting guidance, so I left this rebuild in the original green plastic with only minimal painting such as the wheels and tires. All the parts work, but they aren't very durable. The hinge pins tend to break off after repeated operation, so I've left the gear down and panels closed for display.
The decal sheet for this model has always had six German crosses, which of course is total nonsense. But Lindberg, like many other U.S. and European model companies were sensitive to anxiety brought upon by the sight of swastikas; so they substituted the tail swastikas with crosses. I went ahead and put them on in keeping with the original look and design of this kit.
While not a major good-looker, the Lindberg Me-262 still remains a favorite of mine because of its cool action features and assembly fun.

Aurora Hughes Airwest DC-9 'Top Banana'

The Aurora Hughes Airwest DC-9 was another early model I built while living at J-5. There are some memories associated with it such as hearing Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years" playing on my Dad's stereo, having trouble with my homework, and a new microwave oven not far from where I sat and worked on my models. My parents probably bought it for me at Gemco, or at a toy store during one of our frequent trips 'down below' to the L.A. area to shop. For some reason, I must have picked this one out because I liked the box art, or perhaps because I remember seeing Hughes Airwest DC-9s fly over my grandparents house in Downey on their approach into LAX. For whatever reason, this model has always been a favorite because of its large size, and bright yellow color.
My original DC-9 was put together rather hastily, and while attempting to put the decals on myself, one of the side window strip decals broke, and was ruined. My Dad helped me with the other side, and it came out okay. Isn't that the way it is with all models? There's always a good side and a bad side! I didn't paint my original, and so most of the decals ended up flaking off anyway, until I was left with a plain yellow DC-9.

This rebuild presented me the opportunity to do it right this time. I found one on EBay, with all parts except the display stand, and good decals. The parts are molded in yellow, and I would liked to have left them unpainted like the instructions say, but the yellow just wasn't the right shade - it was more a lemon yellow rather than the correct 'sun dance' yellow. So I sprayed the body with Tamiya yellow which went on like a dream, and is more the correct shade. For the wings I sprayed them Testors primer gray for the inner panels, and tried Testors chrome for the outer strips. The chrome spray paint didn't adhere well to the primer however, so I tried using aluminum foil. The results are better than I could have ever hoped for. She looks like a company desk model. I was worried about the old decals; they didn't looked cracked, but one never knows until soaking and getting them to loosen from the backing paper. To my amazement and pleasure, the decals held together, and slid on perfectly. I didn't bother to use Micro Sol since the plane's surfaces are smooth and glossy. I put clay in the nose so she'll sit properly on her wheels, but if I can find an original Aurora display stand someday, then I might put her on the stand.

Entex "Air Giants" Tupolev TU-144 SST

Supersonic Transports, or "SSTs" were all the rage in the mid to late sixties due to a vision these things would soon be darting the skies carrying passengers at speeds around Mach 2. Plastic model companies were quick to cash in on public enthusiasm for this new form of transportation, and produced kits of the three main SSTs on the drawing board at the time - the Boeing 2707, Tupolev TU-144, and BAC/Sud Concorde. Most of the kits were based on early concept drawings and public press releases, and were not all that accurate such as Lindberg's Boeing and Russian SST. Airfix came out with an early Concorde decked out in old BOAC markings. Revell had their famous Pan Am Boeing SST kit which included two planes, one with wings folded, the other with wings extended and landing gear down. Monogram had a simpler 2707 with wings back and gear up. Nitto in Japan and Plasticart in East Germany released excellent examples of the prototype TU-144 '68001' in 1/144 and 1/100 scale respectively. MZMPI in the Soviet Union had a rather crude prototype TU-144 somewhere between the two popular airliner kit scales.
By the mid-seventies however, the SST program in the U.S. had been canceled; only Concorde and TU-144 went into production. Both went through some design changes which altered their exterior appearance by the time they were ready for passenger service. TU-144's was the most dramatic; it was nearly a different airplane than the prototype. Due to the falling off of public interest in SSTs, model companies didn't take the extra time and money to upgrade their old versions of Concorde and TU-144. There was one lone exception however.
Fuji models of Japan, produced and small, 1:360 scale kit of the production TU-144 in Aeroflot markings. It also appeared on the Sunny label, as part of their "Sky Giants" series. This is, to my knowledge, the only injection-molded plastic kit of the production TU-144. Only recently has a resin kit appeared from Russia in 1/144 scale, of this historic airplane.
Entex marketed the Fuji/Sunny TU-144 in the U.S. under their "Air Giants" series of 'big planes in small packages.' These kits were sold at my local Gemco department store, were cheap, and I loved them. The TU-144 was one of my favorites because it was a Russian airliner, a subject hardly touched by American model companies. It's very crisp and accurate in scale, but does not include landing gear. The interesting thing is, the markings are for s/n 77102, the first production TU-144 that crashed at the 1973 Paris Airshow. The decals even have the number "451" which was the plane's registration number for the airshow. This is not the first time a model company printed decals for a doomed airplane, either before or after the tragedy. For example, Aurora's C-141 Starlifter "38077" crashed in Spain four years after the kit's release. Perhaps Fuji chose 77102 simply because it was the first ship to roll off the production line, and got the most publicity.

There's nothing to building this kit; it only has ten pieces, plus a three-piece display stand. My original looked pretty good back in '76, and this rebuild looks about the same since the TU-144 is all white. I would have left the plastic parts unpainted, but they yellowed a bit after forty years, so I sprayed it gloss white. I thought this might also help the original decals adhere, but they were mostly unusable except for the Soviet flag insignia. I used a set from the newer Academy version, which is identical to the Entex, except the decals are a little brighter and bulkier than the original. Amazingly, this is another one of those old Fuji/Sunny/Entex kits still in production today by Academy.

Entex Convair F-102A "Supersonic Series"

Gemco had a large selection of Entex kits, especially the smaller, cheaper ones such as the "Air Giants" series and the "Supersonic Series." They were all under a buck, which is unimaginable today. The only kit from the "Supersonic Series" I bought was the F-102 "Delta Dagger" because it was featured in an Air Force recruiting pamphlet I had from the early 70s. These were Otaki 1/144 scale kits repackaged by Entex, and included the F-105 Thunderchief, F-111 Aardvark, F-4 Phantom II, F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle, and A-5 Vigilante. They are finely detailed, and superbly molded little kits. On my original F-102, I left it mostly unpainted except for the black radome which I painted with, you guessed it, Mom's ceramic paint! The landing gear was very fragile, and didn't survive playtime very long.

For this rebuild, I wanted to leave the main surfaces unpainted, but the plastic didn't seem to be the right shade of Air Defense Command Gray. When I started to brush on some Testors ADC gray however, I discovered the plastic was indeed molded in the correct color! I went ahead and coated the whole thing any way, just to make sure the decades-old decals would firmly adhere. They did, without much breaking, but the California Air Guard decals for the tail were slightly too large. This surprised me as the rest of the decals are accurately scaled. I had to cut away the excess around the edges once they dried. It looks okay finished from a distance.
This is a fun little kit to build, and still an easy one to find sealed on EBay. Entex must have made tens of thousands of these.

Monogram HU-16E Albatross

Sometime in either late 1975 or early 1976, my Mom got a job as a secretary at the Letcher Mint. Al Letcher minted commemorative coins and casino tokens at a small plant in Lancaster. He also collected and flew vintage jet airplanes, including a DeHavilland Vampire Mk3 and an Armstrong Whitworth Meteor N.F. 11. As soon as she started working for Al, he invited my family to watch him fly his planes at Mojave Airport on the weekends. What a magical place for a kid like me at a time when my fascination for airplanes was growing rapidly. In the mid-70s, Mojave Airport was mostly quiet, with lots of derelict airplanes on the tarmac. There were a few small industrial businesses located in hangars along the flight line, including Flight Systems Inc., but it was not like it is today. There was also no commercial airliner storage there either. There were however some interesting artifacts including two Douglas C-133 Cargomasters, a gutted-out KC-97, and two U.S. Coast Guard HU-16E Albatrosses parked next to each other. One day, the airport manager Dan Sabovich, got the padlock key for one of the Albatrosses, and let us take a look inside. I remember the interior being all flat black, which made it very hot inside. What was striking though was the completely original interior, including passenger seats, radar gear, radios, and navigational equipment. I even got to sit up front and play with the controls for a couple minutes.
Around this time I was excited to see a model kit of the Coast Guard Albatross at Gemco, and had to have it. It was Monogram's 1975 reissue of their popular U.S. Air Force SA-16B Albatross kit from the late 50s. The model looked exactly like the two HU-16Es I saw at Mojave.
Putting that first HU-16E model together on the picnic table in my back yard is still a vivid memory for me. As usual for this time in my model making, I used my Mom's black paint for the radome and tires. My Dad gave me some thin purple and yellow pin-striping tape to spice the plane up a bit, but it peeled off not long after application. This first Albatross got a lot of heavy play around the house. I especially liked the retractable landing gear, and I wore it out after repeated operation.
A couple years later, I bought another HU-16E to replace the first one. On the second one, I hand-painted the red and blue Coast Guard colors, but it didn't look very good. I free-handed all of it, and my demarcation lines were pretty rough. On top of that, painting gloss blue and red enamel on white plastic by brush looks terrible.

On this third rebuild pictured here, I spray painted the red panels with Tamiya bright red, and also sprayed the blue stripe with Tamiya French Blue. What I like about this Monogram reissue is they molded the plastic in a thick white styrene that looks like it's painted semi-gloss white. So, I left the white plastic unpainted, which saved a lot of time and labor. Even for an experienced modeler, the Coast Guard red, white, and blue paint scheme is a challenge to get right. I went through a lot of masking tape on this one! But if done right, the results are fantastic. I also painted the interior flat black like I remember in the real airplane at Mojave. This adds some realism to the model when finished, since you don't see a white interior through the clear windows. I was a little disappointed with the original decals. They stayed together in one piece, but were too thick to completely conform over the heavy rivet lines, even with copious amounts of Micro Sol. They were also a bit yellowed from age. I covered them with a thin coat of Testors semi-gloss clear acrylic after they dried just to make sure they stay on permanently.
This is a fun moel to build, but not necessarily a fun kit to paint. The original Air Force version is much easier. But, with patience and skill, the Coast Guard HU-16E is real eye candy on the shelf once she's finished.
Because of the Mojave Airport connection I have with this plane, the Monogram HU-16E is one of my all-time favorite model airplane kits.