Savoia S.79 Corsa, adaptation from the 1/72nd scale Airfix kit

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

A build from 4 years ago of the classic Airfix Brick:

 

Spurred by the magnificent job being done by Martian Hale on his S.79, I felt prompted to provide another view of this strangely beautiful tri-motor, in its civil guise.

I have built three conversions of the S.79, so let's start with this one which is, as was the original, just an out of the factory line machine, demilitarized, re-equipped and repainted.

 

Here is the conversion of the venerable Airfix S.79 to the I-ROTR racer that participated in the Istres-Damascus-Paris competition.

This "adaptation" (since it does not really qualify as conversion) is meant to be a much simpler build to see if more modelers can be encouraged to venture beyond the traditional constraining borders.

My main reference is Paolo Miana's "Lost Archives - Pictorial history of SIAI - Chapter I - the Sorci Verdi".

I may say that although the book covers magnificently the greatly modified Corsa version, not much material was found by Mr. Miana in the archives he researched about this specific "gobbo" machine which was merely a production line unit, gobba and all, hastily adapted to fill a gap. Therefore we can only see the exterior, and from there deduct a few things. 

This machine was pressured into the race as other Italian entries were not ready in time. The "conversion" then did not actually modify the plane as deeply as it was the case with the Corsa version (that I built from the Italeri kit), and consisted only of the removal of armament (or was it secretly kept to shut-down competitors?), deletion of the ventral position and addition of extra fuel tanks.

Therefore this is an easy one that most modelers can accomplish with minimum effort and just a few modifications, since the hunch (gobba) of the fuselage does not have to be removed.

Why am I using the Airfix kit instead of the immensely superior Italeri one?

Well, my good friend and Evil Genius Sönke Schulz sent this model to me as a gift. Why, you may ask, again, yourself? well, since he is marzipanly malign (he lives in Lübeck), he carefully glues some parts that shouldn't be glued until a later stage. In this case the wing halves, that failed to trap the ailerons and the parts for the landing gear. He also glued the stabilizer halves, again failing to trap the elevators. On top of that he also lost many transparencies, but fortunately not the windshield. He therefore sent the kit and now seats down whilst petting Helga (don't ask) and laughs (you know the drill "mwehehehe, mwahahahahah..") whilst I struggle to deal with those issues.

In a more serious note, I repeat that you can do this with the Italeri kit too, but if you happen to have an Arfix S.79, this may be your chance to play a little without the pressure of marring a good kit, and in the process learn a couple things and achieve a colorful model that will be attractive, in civil use, and unusual.

Start by throwing away anything military in the kit. Then discard the "open" dorsal position that is an alternate part. Later on you will have to fill the hole underneath the fuselage by the absence of the ventral position, by the simple expedient of tracing a shape in plasticard, cut the part, glue it in place, apply putty and sand a bit. Easy enough.

Finally here is one of the several Savoia Marchetti S.79 Corsa that participated in the Istres-Damascus-Paris race, I-ROTR, the only one with the hunchback, since it was mainly a production machine pressed into the race with some adaptations, whilst the other S.79 entries were purposely-modified machines. Decals and masks are home-made, and no little amount of time and effort has been spent on this one. If you have the old Airfix brick, you may like to have a go, if not, just get the Italeri kit, that even with its terrible starving appearance is far better than this oldie. My thanks to Soenke Schulz, who generously sent the kit and the Sorci Verdi (green mice) decals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[pheonix]

The SM 79 really was an aesthetically pleasing aircraft to look at, even with its hump. That is particularly well shown in the first photo. Beautifully made and painted as usual Moa.

 

P

[JWM]

Very nice! I like comparision between Italeri and Airfix which does not  outclass old Airfix...

Cheers

J-W 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

15 minutes ago, JWM said:

Very nice! I like comparision between Italeri and Airfix which does not  outclass old Airfix...

Cheers

J-W 

We are still waiting for a better kit of this plane. 

My  -personal- choice is Italeri without any doubt, but ypu still have to correct things.

Cheers

[Baldy]

Stunning! I have an Italeri kit hiding in the loft somewhere.....Mmmmmm, I wonder...........

 

Cheers

 

Malcolm

[TonyTiger66]

A very nice and minimal conversion.

 

The Airfix S.M. 79 was the first kit I ever made. Bought for me by my grandfather in 1970. He gave me a lot of help with it. I remember that old sky blue Airfix plastic like it was yesterday.

 

Italian mottle  camouflage was too difficult for a four year old. It’s still too difficult for me now 😯!

 

It would have been good if they had offered this version out of the box.

 

Very nicely built, painted and great photographs as always Moa.

 

 

TonyT

[billn53]

Absolutely gorgeous! I've always thought the S.79 was sort of an ugly duckling, but between you and Martian I'm going to have to reconsider.

We've been seeing an abundance of tri-motors on these pages lately, and that ain't bad.