Capelis XC-12 Airliner - Scratchbuil/vac masters 1/72

fjaweijfopi4j48 · November 14, 2018

A convoluted build from 4 years ago of a very philosophical plane.

Long ago I saw a scratchbuilt model of the Capelis built by Jim Lund that sparked my interest and led me to contact Mike Herrill of Execuform to see if he was willing to pull vac copies from the wood masters I carved, in order to create a sort of kit for me to work from.

He pulled the copies and so this project could see the light of day. The main reference was the Skyways magazine article on the Capelis found on the October 1995 issue (#36)

But first, what was the Capelis?

Some scholars state that occidental culture as we know it was born in Greece, a well of knowledge that still today feeds psychology, philosophy, mythology and modeling (just remember the great Greek philosopher, modeler and olive pitter Styrenides (V century B.S.).

The Capelis started as a transport project of the Capelis Corporation, whose president, of course, was no other than Socrates Capelis. The Greek community backed the project and by 1933 the plane was ready. Modern for the time (all metal construction) sported nevertheless a forward leaning canopy and a biplane tail, which some say was an outdated feature, but nobody will dare to deny that confers the plane its remarkable aesthetics (aesthetics as a science, by the way, is another Greek legacy).

Things weren’t peachy, though, an after some inauspicious beginnings the whole thing was prematurely and unfortunately dropped. But the Capelis kept going, this time re-incarnated as a movie prop. It endured some modifications and went on for many movies bathing on the golden glory of Hollywood, featuring in many films, the most famous, arguably, being “Five Came Back”, with –among many other movie stars- Lucille Ball, and “Flying Tigers” with John Wayne.

The above-mentioned masters were very simple, on the vein of those vacuformed kits that provide the general shapes. Details, accessories, decals and the like are provided by the modeler, as well as surface detail.

Once I got my vacuformed parts from Mike, I started building the model. There were some minor and major modifications done to the Capelis over time. This model represents the plane as it flew, with its forward-raking canopy. Another nose was later mastered to allow the building of the movie versions, which has a more conventional canopy arrangement.

Another copy -from my masters- by Execuform was built and presented at Telford by another modeller, where you may have seen it, this and the past year.

As a mythological metallic bird coming from Mount Olympus, the Capelis extends its wings over the modeling world.

See you soon.