Twin Otter

[Ray S]

Hello all! I will be starting this in the not too distant future as I am in the middle of a vacform build at the moment.

 

This is the Revell reissue of PK127, the Matchbox Twin Otter. I will be using Paul Parkes decals for a Yeti Airlines plane based in Nepal. The box, contents and transfer shots:

 

 

 

 

I have used Paul's transfers before on a Twin Otter and found them to be very good! Here is a Nepal Airways one from a couple of years ago:

 

 

The inspiration (and jealousy) for this subject is this series of photographs, courtesy of my brother:

 

 

 

 

He flew in to Lukla on this aircraft, and as luck would have it, the codes are on the sheet. I have to say I am not overly jealous, as I have been into Lukla twice and Tumlingtar and even Lhasa (which made him jealous), but we have very friendly rivalry when it comes to Nepal!

 

When I found that Paul did transfers for such exotic liveries, I cleared my local Hobbycraft of all their Twotters, buying all four of them, and the transfers I got were for:

 

• Nepal Airlines (as a test set)
• Royal Nepal (which I have flown on)
• Yeti Airlines (which my bro flew on) and
• Maldivian Air Taxi (which my wife and I flew on when we were on honeymoon)

 

So, after this one, I will be 50% of they way through my collection!

 

I would like to try and improve this one, the Nepal Airlines one was straight from the box. I would like to try and correct the cockpit windscreen at the very least, but also to possibly open the cockpit doors and cabin/luggage compartment doors too. I am not sure about the props, I know John Aero used to do replacements, but there is still a notice from Mike saying the Aeroclub Forum is closed until John is better, so I will probably leave them. The colour scheme will be tricky, especially the cheat-lines along the fuselage, i may well have to do a cheat (sorry!) on them and get something close rather than spot on, but you never know (masking has never been a strong point of mine).

 

I will post more when I get started, and any advice or suggestions for improving this will be very much appreciated.

 

See you soon!

 

Ray

 

PS I do wish Airfix would lidar one of these aircraft, just think of what they could do with it!

 

Edited October 17, 2017 by Ray S
Tidy up the post

[Rob G]

Yet ANOTHER Twin Otter on BM. We've had a positive plethora of them over the last few months. Yay'n'stuff.

 

I'd much rather that someone other than Airfix redid the Twotter. Hasegawa or Fujimi would make it special (though expensive), but I reckon that Eastern Express or Zvezda could do it proud, and affordable.

[Rob G]

Oh, I forgot; the major problems with the Matchbox TO are the windscreen/door area, which you know about; the props, which are just wrong (you also know about these); the engine cowlings, which are undersized, wrongly (and poorly) detailed and possibly slightly wrong in their location, and the vertical tail, which is way too thin. If you can fix all of those, you'll have a bonza Twotter. I'm working (very slowly) on a correction set for the thing, but don't stop your build and wait for it, I may be some time (to misquote a very brave man.)

 

Forge on, good sir! There's never enough Twin Otters on display here.

[Arniec]

Great to sea a model with a story behind it.

It looks to be very promissing.

 

Cheers,

[Ray S]

On 10/17/2017 at 11:19 AM, Rob G said:

Oh, I forgot; the major problems with the Matchbox TO are the windscreen/door area, which you know about; the props, which are just wrong (you also know about these); the engine cowlings, which are undersized, wrongly (and poorly) detailed and possibly slightly wrong in their location, and the vertical tail, which is way too thin. If you can fix all of those, you'll have a bonza Twotter. I'm working (very slowly) on a correction set for the thing, but don't stop your build and wait for it, I may be some time (to misquote a very brave man.)

 

Forge on, good sir! There's never enough Twin Otters on display here.

 

Hello Rob, thanks for that. I noticed in another thread that the tail was a bit(!) thin. Do you know if the fuselage under the tail is too thin too - possibly putting a wedge of plastic strip in to widen the tail may do the job, but I do not want the plane looking like it is expecting!

 

Cheers,

 

Ray