Classic Airframes 1/48
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Introduction
See the June 2006 Internet Modeler for my in-the-box review of the Classic Airframes (CA) Canberra and the history of the aircraft.
Construction overview
The plastic parts have a few sink marks and raised ejector pin marks to deal with. A more serious surface problem is that some of the engraved panel lines are of inconsistent width and depth. There are also tiny plastic "pebbles" in some of these panel lines that have to be carefully removed.
Since there are no locator tabs or pins, extra care must taken when aligning and assembling the two halves of each subassembly. The mating surfaces of the parts also need to be sanded lightly before gluing them together.
The clear parts are of mediocre quality and need either polishing or dipping in Future. Unfortunately, the fit of the canopy and the nose transparency to the fuselage is not good.
The resin parts (cockpit items, wheel wells, wheels, engine faces, and exhaust pipes) are well-molded with good detail.
The separate crew entry door is a nice touch--I installed mine in the open position and added a small styrene strip in the doorway to simulate the support arm.
Wings
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I make it a practice in all of my airplane models with hollow wings to install styrene rod or beam shapes inside to stiffen the wings and stop any flexing. The resulting rigidity helps eliminate any possibility of seams popping open later.
This kit's wings and horizontal stabilizers are much too thick on the trailing edges. I scraped and sanded the wing trailing edges before gluing the halves together to help reduce this problem, but they still don't look right. A fair amount of filling and sanding was required on both leading and trailing edges because of the crude fit.
Since the wings merely butt join to the fuselage, more strength is called for here. CA provides 2 plastic rods to install for this purpose, but I used brass tubes instead. I similarly used smaller brass tubes to attach each horizontal stabilizer to the rear fuselage. After the wings were mated to the fuselage, I had to deal with gaps and inconsistent fit and do a lot of filling in the wing root area.
The worst problem with the wings is the fit of the front engine nacelle units to the main wings--it is simply awful. No amount of tweaking, adjusting, or using spreader bars could get around this problem. The fit of the exhaust rings at the rear of the nacelles was bad, too. So out came the strip styrene, putty, Mr. Surfacer, and sandpaper for multiple applications.
When I eventually attached the main landing gear legs and struts (which have a flimsy fit) to the wheel wells, I had trouble getting the same angle and alignment on both sides.
Fuselage
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I placed 5 oz. of lead weights in the forward fuselage to prevent the CA Canberra from becoming a tail dragger. (Unfortunately, all that weight puts tremendous pressure on the main landing gear & wheels and can cause them to bend.)
The cockpit rear bulkhead and floors (especially the forward floor) do not fit and require a lot of trimming. The pilot's Martin Baker Mk 2 resin ejection seat looks good but lacks the prominent double pull ring at the top, so I grafted on a ring from my spares box. I didn't bother installing the second ejection seat in the rear compartment (the real aircraft had two of them here) because it is not visible and the space can be better used for holding weights.
Despite my careful dry fitting ahead of time, the two fuselage halves did not fit well when they were glued together, especially on the bottom just aft of the nose wheel well. More filling and sanding here for sure.
The nose wheel bay and landing gear is a pandora's box of problems. First of all, the plastic gear leg is too long. I cut off as much of it as possible and attached a steel pin to fit into the receiving resin area inside the bay. But the finished model still sits nose high-- this is a major engineering error. The retraction struts behind the leg are too long and have to be trimmed to fit inside the bay.
Also, the entry holes in the nose wheels are too large for the the axles. I wrapped bits of styrene inside these openings to ensure a tight fit to the axle. The resin nose wheels themselves are molded and attached to the resin casting blocks in such a way that the mud guards are on the top instead of on the back side of the wheel as they should be. And the nose bay doors are too long in relationship to the size of the bay.
Other errors and omissions
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I noticed that CA molded a pair of small square bleed air vents on top of each nacelle. My references for the Canberra B.2 all show a single rectangular vent mounted further back. I didn't try to correct this.
I have a strong hunch that the wing tip tanks are too small, but I lack measurements of the real tanks to verify this. Incidentally, there is no indication of precisely where to attach the tip tanks to the wings. The modeler must study reference photos to get the location and angle exactly right. ( And of course, the tanks don't fit snugly to the wings--filler is again required here.)
Several small but important external details were omitted by CA in this kit: the rear navigation light fairing below the rudder, the pitot tube, the fuel vent, and the starter cartridge exhaust outlets on the nacelles. I found and modified a pitot tube from my spares box. I scratch-built the fuel vent and attached it to the right rear bottom fuselage. I also applied tiny black (decal) dots to represent the four cartridge exhaust outlets.
Paint
My model was airbrushed with Testor's Model Master enamels. The exterior colors are PRU Blue, Medium Sea Grey, and Slate Grey. I chose Euro 1 Gray( FS 36081) for the basic interior cockpit color. I also painted on the black wing walk stripes. The panel lines were accented with colored pencils (my usual method).
Polly Scale Clear Gloss was applied lightly, and more heavily in areas that were to receive decals. Polly Scale Clear Flat later blended in all the decals and shiny areas and my final coat was Polly Scale Satin for a semi-gloss effect. I did not weather the model except for a light oil wash in the wheel bays and wheel hubs.
Decals
I chose to build a No. 100 Squadron aircraft from 1956. The decals came
from XtraDecal Sheet 48-054, and the roundels & fin flash from XtraDecal
Sheet 037-48.
This was my first use of XtraDecals and although I found them to be somewhat
thick, the colors were opaque and they responded well to Solvaset. I was
happy with the results. I did not use any of the kit decals and therefore
cannot comment on them.
When I purchased my XtraDecal Sheet 48-054, I noticed an error in the squadron markings: the checkerboard pattern was printed in black and yellow instead of blue and yellow. When I contacted the manufacturer, Mr. David Hannant acknowledged the error and said it might be possible to do a reprint. To my surprise, 10 weeks later he informed me that the reprint was available. This kind of commitment to accuracy should be a model for all decal manufacturers.
Not knowing if or when a reprint would be forthcoming, I had already painted on the yellow and blue checks (chequers if you are a Brit). I also masked and painted the green disc .
References
My chief references for this project were: Aeroguide No.7, Profile Publications No. 54, and various issues of Air International and the RAF Yearbook.
Conclusion
I am pleased to have a Century Squadron Canberra on my flightline, but building this beast was an unhappy experience. At the end of the day, I was not able to bring this model fully up to my standards. (Perhaps I should not have tried to make a silk purse from a sow's ear.) I recommend the CA Canberra only to modelers who have advanced skills and are willing to commit an inordinate amount of time and effort to wrestle with this kit's many problems.
