The classic Caravelle - Alitalia VI-N in 1/144

[Skodadriver]

I present the good old Airfix Caravelle in the Alitalia green stripe livery.

 

The Airfix Caravelle came out in 1961 when I was nine years old but despite its venerable age it can still provide the basis for a decent model. As I had a couple of Airfix Caravelles in my stash I decided to see what some t.l.c. could achieve. I invested in the Extra Tech PE set although in the event I only used some of it, mainly around the undercarriage.

 

I used Milliput to improve the nose shape. The point of the nose needs to be shifted slightly forwards and downwards. It’s not a difficult job, certainly no harder than fixing the nose of the Airfix BAC 1-11 or Vanguard, but it does make a difference. If you compare the kit’s nose profile with a good side-on photo like this you will see immediately what needs to be done. The other main modification to the fuselage is the narrow door for the nose wheel strut which Airfix missed completely.

 

F-RSIN engines replaced the kit items. The strengthening bands above and below the engine pylons are narrow strips of white decal which had been sprayed with a slightly off white to give a faint contrast with the purer white of the fuselage. As on the real aircraft these are only visible under certain lighting conditions.

 

The wing fences were refined as best I could without actually replacing them and I added the triangular sections to the trailing edges. At the same time the raised detail was sanded off and re-scribed. I used home-made decals scanned from a PAS sheet to represent the airbrakes on the upper and lower wings. Extra Tech provide brass airbrakes but a dummy run on a scrap kit showed that making the necessary rebates on the upper wings for the thin and fragile PE was nearly impossible, at least for me, so I took the line of least resistance.

 

Paint is Halfords Appliance White and AK Interactive Xtreme Aluminium.

 

Decals are by Two Six and Authentic Airliners plus some bits and pieces from the spares box. The door outlines and the windows on the Two Six Alitalia sheet aren’t totally accurate - the emergency exits are not quite prominent enough and green stripe Caravelles didn’t have silver framed windows. Matters are further complicated by the Authentic Airliners cabin windows being too widely spaced for the Airfix fuselage. (After the issues I had with my Malev Boeing 738 I ran a ruler over the decals before I started using them and I’m glad I did). Luckily I had Two Six’s SATA/CTA 10R sheet in my decal stash and it includes spare grey door outlines and unframed cabin windows all of which which were duly “borrowed”. The Two Six windows were then overlaid with the Authentic Airliners ones applied individually.

 

Thanks for looking and as always constructive criticism is welcome. Before anyone says “the pinstripe scheme was prettier” it should eventually appear on a DC-7C if I live long enough.

 

Dave G

 

 

 

 

 

[2Step]

I like that plane! I took some of my first jet plane vacations as a kid in them

great looking model too!!

[Meatbox8]

The Caravelle was always a handsome aircraft but your rendition is a real beauty.  Its' hard to imagine you've built this from a kit which is nearly 60 years old.  It looks state of the art.  A very attractive scheme as well.

[petetasker]

Superb

[TonyW]

That's really done justice to the venerable old Airfix kit. It looks beautiful.

 

Tony.

[pinky coffeeboat]

Another superb model Dave. A bit of TLC and the venerable Airfix kit looks very acceptable indeed. There's a very nice scene in the Italian Job where Charlie (Michael Caine) is saying goodbye to Lorna at Turin Airport and she boards a lovely Alitalia Caravelle...oh hang on it's wearing  pinstripes...

 

Jeff

[Viking]

Now I like most airliner models, but that is a cut above, Dave. It's a lovely looking aeroplane, and the nose improvement really works. It looks quite subtle to me, I have to say I'd not noticed before, but looking at one of my stashed Airfix Caravelles, I can see what you mean. The Alitalia livery suits it very well, and its got a cheatline! And of course the AA windows are superb as usual.

 

You know how after you have tried to find pictures of details, and then when you are finished someone come up with it?

Well here we are,  a picture of the nose leg strut on preserved SAS Caravelle LN-KLH I took recently in Oslo Technical museum. This is looking from the starboard side. Nose is to the right.

 

Cheers

 

John

[Challenger350Pilot]

👍

 

Wow, Dave! I suppose I couldn't say anything more than a dancing purple elephant, a thumbs up, and a spinning star couldn't say already. She's absolutely beautiful. Love this Caravelle. What I like most is your attention to details that matter, and a livery that accentuates her already gorgeous lines. Love this particular Alitalia livery too...makes an airplane look fast even when she's sitting still. 

 

You mentioned the AA windows being too far apart?? Would it have been feasible, though tedious, to cut each of them from the sheet then place them individually? Regardless, the windows you did use look amazing...and the corrective minor surgery on the nose looks undetectable. Really really nice job! 

[Spitfire31]

Elegantly stylish and superbly finished!

 

Like many others, I had my very first flight, from Stockholm Arlanda to Rome in an SAS Caravelle. Sweet memories…

 

Kind regards,

 

Joachim

[jyguy]

Very tidy.Superb modelling.

[desert falcon]

Fantastic looking Caravelle in a very classy AZ livery 👍

 

Just to add to the fond memories of SAS Carvelle’s above, some 30 years ago as an aircraft engineer apprentice I helped prepare OY-KRD (Ulf Viking), before she was donated to the former Danish Aviation Museum in Billund. By that time she had been left parked outside at Copenhagen airport for many years, somewhat forgotten and with most of the interior stripped. Including the cockpit instrumentation and the engines, which had been sold off. SAS managed to buy back some instruments for the cockpit, but the museum accepted to take her with some wooden dummy compressor inlets, in place of the real engines. She can now be seen in her Viking livery at the Danish Technical Museum in Helsingør. 

[Skodadriver]

Thanks for your kind comments everybody, much appreciated 

 

6 hours ago, Viking said:

...

You know how after you have tried to find pictures of details, and then when you are finished someone come up with it?

Well here we are,  a picture of the nose leg strut on preserved SAS Caravelle LN-KLH I took recently in Oslo Technical museum. This is looking from the starboard side. Nose is to the right.

.....

Cheers

 

John

 

Thanks John. I've filed that photo for my next Caravelle which will be a CTA 10R to use up the rest of the decals which donated the doors and windows. That's some distance down the line at the moment. (Reminder to me - buy engines while Laurent still has them!) I have quite a few photos of OO-SRA which I took in Brussels several years ago but she is displayed wheels up so undercarriage shots are particularly helpful.

 

4 hours ago, Challenger350Pilot said:

....

You mentioned the AA windows being too far apart?? Would it have been feasible, though tedious, to cut each of them from the sheet then place them individually? Regardless, the windows you did use look amazing...and the corrective minor surgery on the nose looks undetectable. Really really nice job! 

 

Thanks Challenger350Pilot. That's more or less what I did - I applied the frameless windows borrowed from the Two Six CTA sheet then overlaid the AA ones on top. It was a bit fiddly but nothing like applying 84 individual windows on a 737-800!

 

1 hour ago, desert falcon said:

Fantastic looking Caravelle in a very classy AZ livery 👍

 

Just to add to the fond memories of SAS Carvelle’s above, some 30 years ago as an aircraft engineer apprentice I helped prepare OY-KRD (Ulf Viking), before she was donated to the former Danish Aviation Museum in Billund. By that time she had been left parked outside at Copenhagen airport for many years, somewhat forgotten and with most of the interior stripped. Including the cockpit instrumentation and the engines, which had been sold off. SAS managed to buy back some instruments for the cockpit, but the museum accepted to take her with some wooden dummy compressor inlets, in place of the real engines. She can now be seen in her Viking livery at the Danish Technical Museum in Helsingør. 

 

Thanks desert falcon. I haven't seen OY-KRD but I must look her up the next time I'm in Denmark. Bizarrely the real I-DABU (the prototype of my model) ended up sitting on a pylon outside the premises of an Italian furniture maker. I have no idea if she's still there.

 

Dave G

 

[Mig88]

Very nice indeed!!

 

Miguel

[stringbag]

8 hours ago, Skodadriver said:

I present the good old Airfix Caravelle in the Alitalia green stripe livery.

The Airfix Caravelle came out in 1961 when I was nine years old

Dave G

 

WOW!!! Someone older than me, but only just.

Seriously though, that really is a fabulous result Dave.  Like John, I hadn't realised there was an issue with the nose profile.  It's very subtle, but your mods really do make a difference.

I think the effect of the Authentic Airliners cabin windows is more obvious on the Caravelle than any other type you have modelled, though I suspect that is due to the unusual size and shape.

Another beautiful classic Dave. 

 

Chris.

[CT Modeller]

I'm joining the club as well - I was 10 in 1961! Anyway what a neat, tidy and thoroughly good looking Caravelle. I did mine in the early Alitalia colours, but I wish I had used your cabin windows which look superb

 

 

[RidgeRunner]

Very nice but, as you say, the "pin stripe" was prettier? In my youth, We'd spend many, many days on the terraces at GatwicK withing the SAM caravelles and DC-6s in that scheme. I remember I-DABL as being the sole SAM machine in that scheme. 

 

Martin

[Eric Mc]

Very nice. I saw a couple of similar liveried SAM Caravelles in the mid 1970s.

[stevej60]

Thats a stunner Dave,beautiful finish.

[Adam Poultney]

This is a very nice model of a great first generation airliner. I find the common heratige of the Caravelle and Comet fascinating, just such a different and more cooperative time.

[JWM]

Excellent result!

I have to dig out for the photo from 1964 presenting me and  my older Brother (@krk4m) with Airfix 1/144 Caravelle and Comet, both models made by our Dad. Photo was taken in Krakow about 1964. I shown it here in some "Nostalgia" thread but due to PB crisis it gone from net, but surely I have it somewhere in my  computer.  Let me tell you that Airfix kits were not available in Poland those days. Father as astronomer working for Jagiellonian University in Krakow  got a few months stipend at Manchester University in 1962, when he was preparing his PhD. He bought there Coment, Caravelle and Vanguard kits and made those kits for us after return - the most striking is that those models still exist not broken! (but they are rather dirty/dusty). Then he did few more models - Airfix Queen Elisabeth in 1/600, and two 1/72: Frog Dewoitine D 520 and Revell F4U1D Corsair and few more airliners by Plasticard in 1/100. Anyway - this was how our hobby started .

Cheers

Jerzy-Wojtek

[FortyEighter]

Another superb build Dave - I prefer this scheme to the "pinstripe", it's quite simple but looks elegant.

 

Mike

[jyguy]

• 

[jyguy]

Here's an Airfix Caravelle 10R I built a couple of years ago using Nick webbs decals and aftermarket  engines from F-resin.Woefully short of the standard of the other builds on this thread but it does highlight the value of doing the nose correction ( I wish I had!).

 

EC-BDD was named Jesus Guridi in honour of the Spanish composer.The aircraft was destroyed in an accident on the Night of the 4th of November 1967 on Blackdown hill near Fernhurst in Sussex.

[Skodadriver]

Thanks again for the comments everyone.

 

On 10/12/2019 at 10:17 PM, CT Modeller said:

I'm joining the club as well - I was 10 in 1961! Anyway what a neat, tidy and thoroughly good looking Caravelle. I did mine in the early Alitalia colours, but I wish I had used your cabin windows which look superb... 

 

 

Thanks for the photo CT Modeller. I do like the Caravelle in the pinstripe scheme but since I already have Vintage Flyer's pinstripe decals for the DC-7C my Caravelle was always going to be green stripe. It's perfectly feasible to overlay AA cabin windows on top of the Two Six ones as I mentioned at the start of the thread. I'm not sure if that would work with the cockpit but it might be worth a try.

 

(Nothing to do with Caravelles but I realised I was getting on in years when my cousin's delightfully bonkers thirty-something daughter told me how much I reminded her of her grandfather!)

 

On 10/13/2019 at 2:13 PM, JWM said:

Excellent result!

I have to dig out for the photo from 1964 presenting me and  my older Brother (@krk4m) with Airfix 1/144 Caravelle and Comet, both models made by our Dad. Photo was taken in Krakow about 1964. I shown it here in some "Nostalgia" thread but due to PB crisis it gone from net, but surely I have it somewhere in my  computer.  Let me tell you that Airfix kits were not available in Poland those days. Father as astronomer working for Jagiellonian University in Krakow  got a few months stipend at Manchester University in 1962, when he was preparing his PhD. He bought there Coment, Caravelle and Vanguard kits and made those kits for us after return - the most striking is that those models still exist not broken! (but they are rather dirty/dusty). Then he did few more models - Airfix Queen Elisabeth in 1/600, and two 1/72: Frog Dewoitine D 520 and Revell F4U1D Corsair and few more airliners by Plasticard in 1/100. Anyway - this was how our hobby started .

Cheers

Jerzy-Wojtek

 

What a wonderful story Jerzy-Wojtek! It's amazing to think that the models have survived undamaged for 55 years. I'd love to see the photo if you can find it.

 

On 10/13/2019 at 5:48 PM, jyguy said:

Here's an Airfix Caravelle 10R I built a couple of years ago using Nick webbs decals and aftermarket  engines from F-resin.Woefully short of the standard of the other builds on this thread but it does highlight the value of doing the nose correction ( I wish I had!).

 

EC-BDD was named Jesus Guridi in honour of the Spanish composer.The aircraft was destroyed in an accident on the Night of the 4th of November 1967 on Blackdown hill near Fernhurst in Sussex.

 

Thanks jyguy. I know some of Guridi's music, particularly his choral and organ music, but I didn't realise that EC-BDD was named after him. The accident was attributed to CFIT (obviously) but the actual cause was never properly established. Very unfortunate. Anyhow, seeing your lovely 10R has prompted me to order a set of engines from Laurent Herjean and hopefully my CTA 10R will appear eventually.

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

A wonderful rejuvenation treatment to an ageless classic!

A pleasure to contemplate!

Cheers