The Wibault 283T is to France what the
Ford Trimotor is to USA, or the Savoia Marchetti S.73 to Italy. In another way,
just like today's Airbus A320, the Wibault was Air France’s standard medium
range airliner for European destinations in 1933, up to the start of WWII, with
an accommodation of 10 passengers and 3 crew (including a flight attendant) and
powered by 340 hp Gnome & Rhone “Titan Major” supercharged radial
engines for a dramatic cruise speed of 230 km/h (143 mph).
THE KIT
VLE
models by Bob Wheeler from USA, produces a limited range of 1/144 and 1/72
scale vacformed kits with quite esoteric similar subjects, and I elected to
purchase a Wibault for my Airfix Handley Page HP.42 not to feel too lonely in
his showcase. The Wibault 282/283T is also produced in 1/72 scale. My kit
included resin engines, metal props, and good decals for two variants /
liveries: The Air Union Gold & Red 282T without nose cowling / wheel pants,
and the Air France early 283T.
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REFERENCE
I used
as main
reference material, the following french publications:
-
“Icare” issues106
&107: Air France 1933-1983. (SNPL editions)
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“Le Fana de l’Aviation” issues
187-188-189, featuring a comprehensive monography about the subject,
including detailed scale drawings and color profiles. (Editions Larivière)
“MiniDocavia” number 3 (« Les Avions de Transport Civil Français »
- Editions Larivière). |
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CONSTRUCTION
I started construction in the usual way
for a vacformed kit, by cutting each vacformed part (except engine cowlings) in
respect of a tight margin outlined with a fine marker, then sanded until it
would break off loose. However, this turned out to be inappropriate for the
fuselage halves, when I test fit them together for the first time: The fuselage
was definitely too narrow, although the squared fuselage section of the real
aircraft is taller than wide. But more about that later…
Fuselage
I did not follow the
kit’s instructions by waiting the fuselage parts to be cut out before
working the cabin windows.
For that, I first used a gradual range of drills before cutting out
plastic excess, to finally rend the particular shapes with a Dremel tool
and sand smooth. |
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The cockpit windows had to be entirely
reworked in order to get a model that looks like the real airplane. For
instance, the side windows were placed too high, so I added a piece of evergreen
stick on top and removed plastic down.
After interior received an
overall coat of flat black, both half fuselages were glued together inserting a
two vacform sheet thick sandwich, to recover the appropriate fuselage width.
This was a bit tricky as both halves may come slightly offset. Some plastic bits
were also added forward the wings at bottom fuselage, as I expected much sanding
here, once the wings would be glued in.
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Then, I recovered the unpainted inner
fuselage joint lines with flat black again, before I removed the excess plastic
sandwich of the outer joint lines and sanded them smooth.
The roof’s too sharp
edges were round sanded and square holes were cut out at the cockpit and
fuselage hatch places.
On left rear fuselage,
the round window was superglue filled, and an access door was engraved
accordingly to the references available.
Cockpit framing was completed using Evergreen stuff. |
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Wings
The wings are made of 4
parts: 3 for the upper wing (left – center – right), and one for the
underwing. The dihedral of the outer wings has to be obtained by bending
the underwing first, then by trimming the upper left and right panels at
the mating surfaces, to join the center panel at proper angle.
The dihedral is pronounced underwing, but very light
upperwing. |
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The wing has to be
inserted with trailing edge mating the back of fuselage slot in order to
obtain a correct angle of attack, however, it leaves a wide gap to fill at
the leading edge, and implies
a lot of trimming at the bottom of forward fuselage, the reason why I had
previously inserted plasticard inside.
A fair amount of superglue, mixed with talcum powder, was used to fill
the forward gap, as standard Tamiya putty was enough for the upper wing
root. |
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Landing Gear
Wheels are moulded with pants (for the
earlier variant, a set of metal wheels are provided with the kit). Once the
halves were glued together and trimmed down, I inserted plugs and drilled the
respective holes underwing, in order to test-fit them properly. It then appeared
that forward corners needed trimming for a correct attitude. Supergluing and
sanding would do the rest.
The tailwheel was not provided with the kit, and had to be
scratchbuilt from sprue bits.
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Engines
The
resin engines were cleaned up, painted gunmetal, and dry brushed with aluminium
Humbrol.
All
3 engine cowlings had to be used for the Air France version. They were cut
out in a quite straightforward way with the help of a punch & die set, thus
allowing the maximum length to be worked. The trick is that resin engines are
too small for the inner cowling diameter. In addition, the center engine cowling
must have a different shape than the others. So, I inserted 2 rings of Dymo tape
per cowling, and filled the gaps with superglue. This way, the cowlings could be
suitably shaped and the resin engines inserted (and centered) with the help of
plastic bits. The cowling lips are a bit thick but not much could be done in
regard to the resin engines diameter.
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PAINTING
Prior
to painting, cockpit and fuselage hatches were made of clear plastic, masked and
white glued in place. The roof’s raised structure, which disappeared during
trimming process, was reshaped using a stripe of ScotchBrand tape. The cockpit
and side windows were masked inside one by one using a toothpick, and small
holes were drilled all around the engine firewall sections.
The
model received a coat of Tamiya AS-12 “Bare Metal Silver” spray and a
toothpick inserted in the nose firewall, which was enough to hold the model in
place during painting process.
After
a couple of days and a masking session, a coat of Tamiya TS-15 “Blue” was
sprayed. I’m not sure about the exact shade of blue but it seems fairly dark,
Tamiya’s “French Blue” appearing definitely too light for that job.
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DECALS
The
decals are very nice and a piece of cake to apply. However, the
“Pegasus” logo is way too wide, so I cut plain yellow decal discs of
the suitable size, using a punch & die set, then added the
“shrimp” which I had cut tight from a Welsh Models Constellation /
Starliner sheet.
Upon
decalling, the model received a brushed coat of Future floor polish. |
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DETAILING
The
cockpit and cabin glazing was made of Micro Krystal Klear. |
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Prior
to glue the engines on, the cowlings were given a “bronze” ring from a mix
of Humbrol 9 “tan”; aluminium and flat black, which was used for the exhaust
pipes as well.
The
metal props were cleaned up, painted silver, given orange decals stripes
(I’m not sure about the color), and brushed with Future.
I
made 3 antennas and probes from stretched sprue for:
-
Right
Wing
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Radio
Mast
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Under
fuselage
2
small sections of stretched sprue were added to the wingtips as navigation
lights, with a touch of their respective side color.
Finally,
my girlfriend kindly provided me hairs for the aerial and the amazingly mounted
external tail control cables on the left fuselage.
1935:
Croydon or Le Bourget?
More
of my building at: http://www.freewebs.com/aeroscale
PHOTOGRAPHY
All
the shots were made using a Nikon Coolpix 4300 digital camera with manual
settings and a tripod, indoor without flash.
Alex
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