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Hello all, here on this fine Forum, we are running an epic Group Build celebrating Matchbox models. There have been amazing builds shown on there, and this was my contribution, with the exception of the 'amazing' part. I used the Revell boxing of Matchbox's PK-127 Twin Otter.

 

I have a bit of a love-affair with the DHC-6 Twin Otter, having flown in them numerous times, and have been patiently building them for quite a long time in the hope that my exertions would prompt someone like Airfix or Special Hobby to dip their toes in the water and give us a modern tooling of one. This time, I thought I would try AeroCraft's cockpit upgrade set. This comes as an upper and lower set of resin parts, along with a replacement bulkhead, and that means a major piece of surgery to the front of the fuselage. I had a reasonable result, but I think that the result in the hands of someone who was really good at repairing joins would be exceptional. I am very glad I used the part, it really makes a difference to how the Twin Otter looks, by correcting the lower profile of the front windscreen to give the characteristic downward sweep for the glazing.

 

There is a thread to look at if you would like to see what went on during the build:

 

This is what I ended up with:

 

DSCN8712

 

DSCN8714

 

DSCN8715

 

DSCN8717 (2)

 

DSCN8719

 

To see the difference with the windscreen, here is the upgraded one:

 

DSCN8720

 

And compared to an unmodified on from a previous build of mine, of a Yeti Airlines Twin Otter:

 

DSCN8376 (2)

 

And back to the Air Taxi again:

 

DSCN8720

 

DSCN8721

 

DSCN8722

 

DSCN8724 (2)

 

The black and red parts of the paintwork were Humbrol enamels, brush-painted (three coats of Humbrol 60 Scarlet as undercoats and three of 220 Italian Red as topcoats), the white was Tamiya White Primer. Propellers were masked and painted rather than using the transfers, and the prop warning lines on the floats, and the cheatlines on the engine nacelles were again masked and painted rather than using the transfers. The scheme markings came from a ModelCraft sheet which was originally included in their re-issue if the Matchbox kit.

 

I had a photograph of my own to act as a reference, and also as a reminder:

 

IMG_20210410_0001 (2)

 

Ideally, I would like to find a way of doing this as a diorama and give this model an appropriate setting. All in all I thoroughly enjoyed the build, especially as it was a type I had flown in on our honeymoon, although not this registration.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Ray

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Lovely build there.

 

When we went to the Maldives, we flew in a twin otter in the blue and yellow livery, but unfortunately no-one does that scheme as decals and Maldivian airways never replied to my request for a schematic of the paint scheme.

 

 

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Thanks again for the comments!

 

@Whofan, there is a 'sort of' yellow and blue scheme available:

 

https://www.drawdecal.com/product-category/airline-livery/australia-pacific-airlines/transmaldivian/

 

But the Twin Otter in that is not painted in the wavy style, it was the closest I could find for you.

 

Having built a number of these now, I have always tried to do an 'improvement' on each one, but different upgrades each time, my aim is sometime in the future is to incorporate all of them into one build and get something close to an 'ultimate' (for me, that is) Twin Otter. The really difficult thing would be - what scheme? There are so many.

 

Ray

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