dnl42

Don't forget there are well-known pictures of a camel in the "Camel Caravan to Berlin" aircraft. Another great theme aircraft would one of Gail Halvorsen's C-47 or C-54 dropping candy on his way in. BTW, an excellent book on Operation Vittles is The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America's Finest Hour, by Andrei Cherny. I have 1/144 markings for Camel Caravan to Berlin from Rocketeer Decals. I believe Minicraft also had 1/144 had markings for this. Google tells me diecast models are also available.

My first thought was mucking out aircraft. Then it occurred to me that cows wouldn't have lasted very long in Berlin...

Nice work! Are all the new parts printed? What about the Dahlgren?

This will be an interesting project. Was the C712 and its amalgam of parts from different aircraft something routinely done by Caudron or was this done one-off to achieve some specific characteristics? An example of the latter is the Gulfhawk II, which Grumman made for Al Williams by mating the smaller Grumman F2F wings to an F3F fuselage and empennage to produce a more powerful and agile aircraft than either of its parents.

Worked on the hull discharges. You can see 3 discharges on the port side in my reference photo. Here are enlargements of the exhaust from my reference and another photo And here's an enlargement of the ramp winch cover. There appears to be a rolled edge around the periphery of the winch cover--I assume to provide rigidity to the sheet metal I replicated the rolled edge using stretched sprue. I fabricated the hull discharges using 1.1, 1.5, and 2mm Albion brass tubing. The manifold around the exhaust is my 2nd attempt.

Outstanding job!!!

Very well done!!!

Made progress on the ramp cable in the cargo hold. I first removed HB's misplaced and slightly misshaped engine compartment vent, and built two new vents. HB's is on the left; it's a simple quarter-round. My versions are on the right. They have a quarter-round top part made from a quartered section of 3/16 tube with ends made from a 0.01 disc. The bottom parts are 0.06x0.06 strip. To allow the cable to pass through the cargo hold, I cut 2 slots in the coaming, sized for the deck sheaves to partially sit in the slot. Arjan's photo also shows 2 guide eyes on the engine compartment bulkhead. I fashioned those from 0.01 brass rod. Another photo from Arjan above suggests a triangular protective plate above the deck sheaves. I made those from 0.01 sheet.

Bravo! Quite an outstanding restoration effort!

Bravo! That's a far better job than my first when I returned to the hobby!

Indeed, I hadn't thought about that. But, it makes complete sense now that you pointed it out.

Thanks @longshanks and @Arjan ! You've cleared up my 2 major questions about the 50 cal mounts and the ramp cable arrangement!!!

Bravo! The exact image I needed!!! It clearly shows the cable and some eyes to guide it. I'm also going to declare the deck sheave and protective plates do pierce the coaming. Finally, there are other gems in that picture, such as protective guards around the wing tank manhole covers, a port-side engine compartment vent, the portable bilge pump referred to by Skill in the Surf, additional confirmation of the placement and appearance of light-colored (white?) life preservers.

@Arjan, I'm certain the HB kit is a copy of the Trumpeter kit. Thanks for the pix, there are photos I hadn't seen before. The 1st photo in this post of yours(?) show that artifact that is at least consistent with the ramp cable run. One additional bit of information I gleaned from the photo above is the demarcation between the cargo compartment coaming and the deck over the engine compartment. The coaming appears to end right at the forward edge of the engine compartment. That strengthens my supposition about the cable routing. But, I'm still not ready to commit on the ramp cable routing athwartship. I also see what I appears to be the protective plate over that deck sheave; it's more sensibly shaped than another photo I have. That different shape may be some change order that came along or another difference between an LCM built in Higgins v. Boston Navy Yard. FWIW, PA13-2 isn't quite consistent with the photos cited as being from BNY. @longshanks. I saw that review, which found and corrected HB's mistakes that I've tripped up on too. Once you start looking at online photos, you start wondering what Trumpeter/HobbyBoss were thinking. Sigh... the quest continues...

Another thing I'm looking at is the routing of the ramp cable athwartship. First, what do those on-deck sheaves look like? I've been scouring the interwebs since I started this project early last month. Here's an enlargement that appears to show the protective plate atop the port sheave. It, like other photos I've seen, also suggests the cable doesn't cross athwartship within the engine compartment, as I had previously thought. Here's another enlargement that might show the cable crossing within the cargo compartment. If it is, is that the cable per se or some protective "conduit"? Also, there's a shadow on the starboard side where the apparent cable would intersect the coaming. I wonder if that shadow is some interior part of the sheave? BTW, this also shows the cable run from the equalizing sheave and the ramp winch, which is at the very right edge of the image. Opinions are welcome! Photos or drawings supporting or contradicting this are most prized! Oustanding stuff! Thanks!!!