Douglas C-124A ‘Globemaster II’

[richellis]

Douglas C-124A ‘Globemaster II’

1:144 injection moulded kit from Roden

Rodens latest release in 1:144 is the Douglas C-124A Globemaster II military transport aircraft. The Globemaster is biased on a C-47 with a radically different and larger fuselage with two decks. There are clamshell doors in the lower front fuselage to make it easy to load the 23m long loading bay with up to 31,100kg of cargo. The power to lift this off the ground comes from 4 Pratt & Whitteney R-4360 Wasp major engines

The C-124A first took to the air in 1949 and its career with the US military ended in the mid 1970s.

The fuselage comes in the usual 2 parts, and just needs a basic flight deck building and the nose gear bay adding before you can get the glue out. The review kit has some minor moulding pips on the mating surfaces to sand back before gluing. There are no tabs or lugs to help line the halves up, but the C-124s fuselage is fairly square so should be easy to glue some strips of plastic along the edges.

There is a single small clear sprue that has the roof and windows for the flight deck. You will need to mask this part carefully for the clear windows as there are no decals for the flight deck windows on the sheet. There are engraved marks on the part to help with this task.

Don’t forget nose weight as there is no mention in the instructions to remind you, nor is there any clue on how much top add!

The next sprue contains the tail and stabs. Both are in 2 parts and will need careful gluing and clamping to get them together. The detail on the parts is nice with engraved panel lines. There is a part on this sprue not needed for this kit, it looks like a different clamshell door for the fuselage, along with some other extra bits in the kit shows possibly another version is planned!

The wings come over 4 parts, with some parts for the gear bays and engine fire wall to be added, and a couple of holes need opening with a drill before gluing the upper and lower parts together. Again take care when gluing and clamping. The parts are nice with engraved detail.

The next sprue under the camera carries allot of various bits and bobs for the kit. There is some minor flash on some parts of the review kit but nothing that will take more than a few seconds with the sanding stick. Again there are a few bits not required for this version pointing to different

In the kit you get two of these sprues, and they carry the engine parts and main undercarriage parts. The detail is both raised and engraved n these sprues and the parts look nice with no flash on these sprues.

You get double what is shown in the picture, they look well done, with good detail on the hub for the small scale.

You get a single decal sheet that covers a single aircraft from the Military Air Transport Service ‘Continental Division’. The painting and decal placement instructions are a small colour sheet with drawings to show the position of the decals, and the colours that are referenced to the Model master range.

The decals look well done, to the usual Roden standard. The gap in the N and E in Continental, and the I and S in division took me a few moments to realise that the gap allows the decal to sink into the engraved rudder line on the tail!

Conclusion

A nice kit form Roden for an unusual heavy lift aircraft. I do have a thing for heavy lift aircraft and this plugs a gap in the collection!

Review sample courtesy of

[woody37]

That's a beast of an aeroplane, does make you wonder how it lifted off.

[bootneck]

Hi Rich,

that's certainly an interesting looking subject for a kit and should look quite impressive on a display.

Mike

[Radleigh]

Always been a big fan of large radial aircraft! Rich, do you mind me asking what size this is roughly when built?

[richellis]

Yea, Ill have a look and see!

[JosephLalor]

Always been a big fan of large radial aircraft! Rich, do you mind me asking what size this is roughly when built?

Wingspan about 14 1/2 inches, length about 10 1/2 inches.

Joseph