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Built 4 years ago. The WIP is here: Here is the completed Potez 62.1 in Argentinean livery, with full interior (unfortunately, if you need to go the restroom, you will need to click on the building article link, though). A very long-haul project. Again my thanks to Sönke Schulz (the original Heller kit's donor!), Alain Bourret, Christos Psarras, Matias Hagen, Martin Blanco from Uruguay*, Armando Gil, the Pavlovcic article in LV magazine -that although not totally accurate helped spur my interest-, and the others that helped me with this project. *Amigos de Uruguay, ¿para cuándo un CX-ADH? The step-by-step building article is here: Just to be clear regarding this conversion: 1) You can not use the Heller's kit fuselage unless you completely modify it and make it wider. Better make a new one. 2) You can not use the kit's engine gondolas and props without modifications, not a single one Potez 62.1 had those seen in the kit. 3) Get good references, the Dumollard book to start with. 4) Be prepared to do some serious work. 5) Whenever possible, do not only look at drawings, but also at photos of the machine you wish to replicate. They tend to differ...quite a bit. 6) Cross-check your references, as you may see in the building article some can be misleading. 7) The lighter color of the airliners is NOT white, neither pure aluminum, but a grayish version of it. Many photos show how dark and somewhat dull this tome could be under certain light conditions, and on the other hand under different lighting it could look white. Especially useful is the photo published in the Pavlovcic article mentioned in the building posting, where the white of the Argentinean flag on the rudder clearly contrasts with the fuselage upper color. It is truly a touch of irony that LV-"SEC" (dry in French) ended up soaked as shown on that photo sticking ignominiously its tail out of the water in Brazil. Or may be the plane just wanted to have a splash in the waves of Rio. 😎 In order to achieve a good result it is indispensable that during the construction of this model you listen to György Ligeti -or at the very least Eric Satie- and read "Monty Python's Big Red Book".

A build from 4 years ago: The conversion of the veteran Heller Potez 54 into a Potez 62 airliner is not unknown to the modeling universe. It is not an easy conversion, and implies serious modifications of the fuselage and, depending on the specific machine chosen, new engines and engine nacelles and other details. The airliner will of course necessitate its new cockpit and a cabin interior, with its many seats and other details, a new set of decals will have to be produced and some extensive research would be in order if you wish to obtain a reasonably accurate reproduction. Some modelers have chosen to modify the Heller fuselage, while others took advantage of the Dujin resin conversion fuselage. This item is not easy to get, but I believe is not impossible to grab one if you persist. I passed on it for several reasons: price, material (resin) and the fact that not having the opportunity of handling one directly I could not evaluate its accuracy and level of detail. This conversion has been tempting me for a while, but my interest picked up in discovering that Argentina, the country where I was born, had two Air France machines operating under French registration on the Buenos Aires / Santiago de Chile route, one of which was later acquired by the Argentinean government and re-registered LV-SEC (F-ANQQ). F-ANQQ was a converted 62.0, therefore had no sweptback as the ulterior 62.1 series machines. At around the same time two Dewoitine 333 and two 338s were also acquired, but very unfortunately they were passed to the military and did not go into civil operation, pity, because I would have loved to build models of them too. The Potez 62 LV-SEC operated only once, in half a flight. That's correct. According to the Pavlovcic article it flew on an official mission to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with some politicians and predictable entourage, only to crash on take-off on the attempted flight back, fortunately with non-fatal injuries but leaving the machine converted in a pile of trash. A not uncommon occurrence regarding many politicians: going half the way, leaving everything trashed, and escape unscathed. The same article features a photo (apparently the only known) of LV-SEC's tail sticking out of the water, not a pretty -or memorable- sight. As I started to gather, read, and compare sources, references and photos, it became obvious, as always, that you can not really take all you read as uncontroverted truth. The Pavlovcic article, otherwise a good effort that deserves praise and has many merits, seems to contain nevertheless a few inaccuracies, the most potentially misleading stating that the engine on the French machine that will become the Argentinean machine has its engines changed from inline (Hispano Suiza 12 Xrs) to radial (Gnome Rhone 14 Kirs Mistral Major) , which I believe is not correct. It seems it is all the way around: having started as a Potez 62.0 it had the radials, but when upgraded to 62.1 received the inlines. Surprisingly enough, in the very same article there are two photos of both Air France Potez with inline engines. Furthermore, he mentions about the Argentinean machine that had a "big radiator in the lower-front part of the nacelles", an undeniable feature of the inline Hispano Suiza, and photos of the Andes crossing taken from the Potez and partially showing the engine show an Hispano Suiza inline front, so I am not sure where this confusion roots. This is important, because being an inline engine, you could use the kit's nacelles, although not without some modifications, as photos show. This mods will be dealt with later on. If you are "un hermano de la Banda Oriental" (that is Uruguayan), being your Potez CX-ADH a 62.1 (ex- F-ANQN), it should include the modification of a 2 degrees sweptback as this one was a 62.1 from factory, therefore it did have the 2 degrees sweptback of the 62.1 series machines. An article by John Stroud on Aeroplane Monthly of May 1986 in his "Wings of Peace" series states that the specific machines that operated in Argentina had five seats. This is understandable if you contemplate that they had to cross the Andes to Chile, reaching an altitude of 5.500 meters (source: article on the Potez crossing the Andes on Revue Hispano Suiza). The same source also states that the two machines had Hispano Suiza X engines, and gives the second machine as F-ANQQ, instead of QO as the Pavlovcic article. In that regard the Pavlovcic article in Lima Victor is not correct. Unfortunately for Pavlovcic (and this mean absolutely no disrespect and does not detract from the merit of the overall effort) all references state F-ANQQ, including the Dumollard book and the registers: http://www.ab-ix.co.uk/f-aaaa.pdf Those original five seats were nevertheless surely increased in number as the machine passed to Argentinean hands, as the count for the infamous flight to Brazil shows: pilot, co-pilot, mechanic, radioman, mechanic assistant (five crew members) and eight passengers (13 total). I started by making the fuselage sides. One quick look at the kit ones made me realize that I would save a lot of time if I just scratched the fuselage instead of trying to cut, splice, patch, fill, putty, sand, smooth out, etc. the kit parts. My wife suggested I could save even more time by not building the plane, but, although her logic is undeniable, I suspect a catch there (as in everything she says in that particularly sweet tone of voice) so I did not follow her advise.