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Avis 1/72 DH.60X Moth Amphibian


Smudge

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Hi, I have acquired this rather lovely little kit:

 

 

Amphibian

 

Unfortunately there is very little (no) information about the aircraft in the instructions, other than how to build and paint it. It's a lovely looking aircraft and I'd like to know a bit about it. So, I have been having a search on the web, and the best I can come up with are some rather splendid old photos. Probably shouldn't copy and post them, so here is a link to them

 

http://hiveminer.com/Tags/dh60xmoth/Recent

 

I have been able to make some educated guesses based on what I can see. The aircraft appears to have been owned by Grover Loening (he has a Wikipedia page). He was a bit of an early aviation pioneer and founded the Loening Aeronautical Engineering Company. Now I think he pioneered a few amphibious designs, and had a few of them accepted by the US Navy. The emblem on the fin appears to be a winged 'L', possibly Loening company or personal logo? 

 

What I am assuming is that he used this Moth to trial his amphibious float design, which can be seen in some of his later aircraft.

 

So, I am just wondering if anyone has any information to back this up, or otherwise. I am also intrigued to know if any long distance or record setting type flights were ever made by this aircraft?

 

Looking forward to your replies.

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Loening built a Series of amphibians from the early 20s that served with the US Navy and US Army Air Corps.  These planes made pioneering flights around South America (USAAC) and Alaska (USN).  One of the USAAC aircraft is at the Smithsonian.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loening_OL

Grumman worked for Loening, and once Loening quit he developed the Grumman Ducks which bear a family resemblance to the earlier firm's aircraft.

Any of these amphibians would make a lovely model, but this doesn't help you at all with the Moth amphibian!

Cheers

Will 

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7 minutes ago, malpaso said:

..........................to the earlier firm's aircraft.

Any of these amphibians would make a lovely model, but this doesn't help you at all with the Moth amphibian!

 

 No, but never mind. Nice to hear from you. :)

 

I think Esoteric did some Loening vac forms (Longhorn? Shoehorn?).

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Smudge, your right it's a mysterious aircraft.  Although there's plenty of photos of twin and single float seaplane Moths and some of the two wheeled amphibian, I can't seem to find anything about it in these books:

De Havilland Aircraft since 1909 - Jackson (Putnam history)

De Havilland DH60 Moth - McKay

De Havilland Moths in Detail - McKay

American Flying Boats and Amphibious Aircraft - Johnson

 

I can't imagine the unicycle amphibian was a prototype for Loening as their flying shoehorns for the Navy and Air Corps predate the Moth by some years.  Maybe it was just an experiment to see if a mono wheel would work, I presume the balancing was down to the outriggers on the floats.  It seems an eccentric solution even for Loening.  It seems to flout the "if it looks right" principle!

 

Intriguingly the box art for the other Avis Moth kits seem close to pictures in the above books, I wonder where they found the info, if indeed there is any more than those pictures on the web.

 

Anyway, I'm sure your kit will make a lovely model.  I think I'll look out for one of these Avis kits, maybe not this one.  I already have two Esoteric vacform Loenings to build some day!

 

Cheers

Will

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Hi malpaso,

Thanks for your reply. You make some interesting points, and thanks for trying to find some more info. 

 

Good luck with your vac forms. I nearly bought one myself recently, but they were a little pricey.

 

Cheers.

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 Loening Aeronautical Engineering Company also made a few civilian sales as shown by G-CADV which was a M.23 plane used by a Quebec airline.   However the D.H.60.X models I'm most familiar with were used by the Royal Canadian Air Force during the interwar period and used a mixture of float systems as I understand.

 

There are references to some being lost at English Bay (now greater Vancouver, BC) as sea planes and I wonder if this was a modification to the float systems as inland work was usually dual floats.   

 

http://www.airhistory.org.uk/gy/reg_G-C.html

This is the link I'm using for reference on aircraft type and call signs.   Hope it might lead to some options.

 

foresterab

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