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Lockheed C-141B Starlifter - 1:144


Julien

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Lockheed C-141B Starlifter

1:144 Roden

 

b01.JPG


The Starlifter was introduced into the USAF 1965. Early in the 1960's the USAF realised that the existing airlift aircraft were too slow and lacked large enough doors for outsize cargo. Requirement 182 asked for a new aircraft which could fulfil both Tactical and Strategic missions. Lockheed came forward with its design called Model 300. It was designed from the outset to carry freight. It would feature a swept main wing, four jet engines and a cabin floor height of only 50 inches above ground, and a high mounted wing enabled a nine foot high cargo area. Large rear opening door allowed access to cargo, and side opening doors allowed the dropping of Paratroops. The rear cargo doors were also able to open in flight for the dropping of cargo.

While the original Starlifter was designated the C-141A it was often found that the aircraft was out of space before it was out of lifting capacity. A plan was put forward to stretch the airframe in order that it could be used to its maximum capacity. Two plugs were added in front of and aft of the main wings. A total of 24 feet 4 inches was added to the aircraft. As well as the stretch an in flight refuelling system was added enabling full strategic airlift operations to take place. The new version was called the C-141B.

The Kit
Many people including myself have been waiting for a new tool injection plastic C-141. Roden have delivered the goods here with this ew tool aircraft in 1.144 scale. Even in this scale the model will be nearly 36cms long. The kit is in a medium grey plastic well moulded with fine engraved panel lines. There is a small amount of flash in the main undercarriage bays, but none on the rest of the kit.

 

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The kit is fairly basic as kits go, the exterior is complete but here is no interior at all and no ramps etc if you were to try and open things up. There is no cockpit, and no details in the under carriage bays. Construction starts with the undercarriage units. The nose unit and the two main units are completed the legs and wells look good but there is no detail inside the bays as already mentioned, though when complete you wont be able to see in there anyway.
 

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Next up the four engines are completed. These feature a fan face and exhaust nozzles for each unit, which for this scale will look the parts. Next step is to complete the main wings. These are of a conventional layout of upper and lower parts for the left & right hand side. Once the wing halves are together the engines can be attached.

 

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The main undercarriage bays are added to each fuselage half and they can then be joined together not forgetting to add the nose wheel bay at the same time. No mention is made of nose weight but I would be sure to add some in. The main gears can then be added into the bays and the doors added for the main and nose wheel bays.

 

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To finish off the wings are added to the main fuselage along with the tailplanes and the cockpit glazing.

 

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Decals
Markings are provided for one aircraft only 65-0257 from the 452nd Air Mobility Wing, March Air Force Base from 1990 in the overall grey scheme. The decals are printed my Roden and are not the crispest I have seen. All markings for these aircraft were in back/grey with the exception of the coloured tail flash.

 

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Conclusion
This is a great modern tooling of an important US Strategic Airlifter. It is a shame there is no cockpit in the model just a blanked off area. Recommended.

 

 

 

 

Review sample courtesy of
logo.gifUK Distributors for logo.jpg

 

 

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It is nice to see a plastic kit of the C-141 on the market in 1:144 scale.  I'm sure that this will be a popular subject and hopefully we might even see some builds on here.  As to the decals, I'm optimistic that someone will produce good quality aftermarket decals in due course; once the kit has made its mark in the hobby shops and forums.

 

Good review Julien.

 

Mike

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2 hours ago, sofiane1718 said:

Many thanks for this review Julien, I hope they will make the B-52 and some C-130 and Transall too :D

 

And its bigger brother the C-5 Galaxy - don't forget that one :)

 

6 hours ago, bootneck said:

It is nice to see a plastic kit of the C-141 on the market in 1:144 scale.  I'm sure that this will be a popular subject and hopefully we might even see some builds on here.  As to the decals, I'm optimistic that someone will produce good quality aftermarket decals in due course; once the kit has made its mark in the hobby shops and forums.

 

Good review Julien.

 

Mike

 

Hopefully the good people at Draw Decal will see the light.

Edited by Richard E
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just sanding the engines on mine.

I don't like the plastic texture but it looks good in primer with only a little filler needed around the cockpit (using MEK as glue).

Hard to know which shade of grey to do it.

H305 seems very dark and my shots of 50257 taken at March AFB- not wright patterson as stated -  museum last may show a much faded scheme with most on line shots looking somewhere in between

 

IMG_20160922_004042.jpg

 

DSC_2428.jpg

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Oggy, Gunze H305 is FS36118 which is too dark a shade to start with: the correct colour for the whole USAF transport fleet should be AMC Proud Gray which is labelled as FS36173, so a little bit lighter. This will be the starting point to add fading, bleaching and whatever you like depending on the age of the plane you are reproducing.

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I can see another hit to the wallet coming up. It's a shame there is not internal detail though - that would be nice to see, but I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to make something up yourself

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