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A build from two years ago: (The WiP is here: Here is one of the two Westland planes that flew over Mount Everest* for the Houston Everest Expedition, G-ACAZ (The other was G-ACBR). The model is based on the very old and a bit clunky kit by Air Lines / Frog of the Westland Wallace. Some of the editions of these kits had the (poorly researched) "Everest" decals, but the fact is that that the kit needs some modifications to accurately represent one of the machines, and very involving modifications to represent the other. I built both, here is one, the other will be posted today later on. *Mount Everest, by the way, it's a name coined by the then British colonists. The mountain is locally known by two names: Sagarmāthā (forehead or head in the sky) and Chomolungma (mother of the world). My thanks to Mika Jernfors, of Arctic Decals, who designed and provided the high-quality decals I am so spoiled with. Here are some of the necessary mods for G-ACAZ: -Different landing gear -No elevator or rudder trim tabs -Fin/rudder with paint outline -No wingtip skids -Different wing tip and inset ailerons arrangement -Different dihedral -Different strut locations -An additional diagonal strut between the inner wing struts -Absence of little cutout inside the large wing cutout above the pilot's head -The lower wing cutout meets diagonally the fuselage, instead of meeting a straight short section as in G-ACBR -There were no visible "zippers" on the fuselage sides of G-ACAZ. -A small rectangular opening or window is seen low on the fuselage side aft of the lower wing -G-ACAZ has only one aileron control horn (two on the other plane) -The exit holes for the tail control surfaces are slightly different -The oil radiator is in a different position, aft and a bit lower than the one in G-ACBR -There were three diagonal louvers on the nose on each side there are other details. Look at photos of the original. Find out, don't be lazy.

This is a build from 2 years ago: I just posted the RFI, here is the WiP so modelers that are intrested can follow the necessary modifications to the kit: The main modification needed are: G-ACAZ: -Different landing gear -No elevator or rudder trim tabs -Fin/rudder with paint outline -No wingtip skids -Different wing tip and ailerons arrangement -Completely different dihedral and wing sections -Different strut locations -An additional diagonal strut between the inner wing struts -Absence of little cutout inside the large wing cutout above the pilot's head -The lower wing cutout meets diagonally the fuselage, instead of meeting a straight short section as in G-ACBR -There were no "zippers" on the fuselage sides of G-ACAZ. -A small rectangular opening or window is seen on the fuselage side aft of the lower wing -G-ACBR and G-ACAZ have different small "gizmos" on the center section of the top wing there are many other small details. Look at photos. This second kit is an "Air Lines" very old release. If you look at the box illustration, it's totally misleading, a hybrid of the military version with civil regs. Novo releases also featured a similar misleading cover. No pants, of course are to be seen on the molds : The side of the box shows the correct airplane, though. Go figure: This outfit seems to have been associated with Testor: The mold is exactly the same as Frog, Novo, Maquette, etc, but this "Air Lines" release has a much harder plastic, very brittle, and plagued with sink holes. See the difference between the Novo (white) and Air Lines (silver). Nothing you can't deal with, but my advise is that you steer if you can towards the Novo/Maquette releases. I got a couple of these Air Lines kits for a lower than usual price, but will have to work a little more. I purchased two Air Lines kits, the silver has extremely brittle plastic, to the point of really hindering work, the blue is just a little harder than the Novo/Maquette relaeases: The wings are scored on the top surface and carefully "cracked" down to eliminate the dihedral. You may use a thin saw if that works better for you, but keeping straight and clean (on hindsight -and from experience- do all the surface work -sinkholes, new strut locations, wingtips, et.- BEFORE re-doing the dihedral, because the sanding work will stress those dihedral joints): Once the new strut location holes have been drilled, the wings are scored underneath the inner struts' station and again "cracked", this time upwards to obtain the necessary dihedral at the prescribed places (inner struts). The old struts holes need to be filled on both wings. The new holes on the lower wing should go through, as they will also support the new undercarriage legs: I was sanding the prop when it snapped, even unprovoked: The culprit: an air bubble: The tabs have been removed from the elevators and rudder. Other parts were cleaned-up: The fuselage sides are masked and their sinkholes puttied: The wingtip skids are discarded and so are the landing gear parts, since G-ACAZ had a different arrangement: The wings tips are now cut off: The areas on the trailing edges of the wings that need filling are dealt with, the fuselage sides sinkholes that were puttied are now sanded: A donor kit (sorry Diego, I had to sacrifice one kit so another could live -Diego thinks this a sacrilege punished by having to endure a Puget Sound Irregulars Meeting-) provides the wingtips which were cut from the midsections using a plan template. The ailerons are also cut to size: The wingtips are glued: All bits in place, now for the filling, priming and sanding (the ailerons are not glued). By the way, it's better to start this way to modify the wings, adding the wingtips and filling bits and tidying-up, and then crack the wings for the dihedral, since this wingtip operation may cause some stresses that may snap the modified dihedral: