PM 1/72 C-45 Expeditor

t.This cute little plane, believe it or not, once held the record for longest continuous production run. During the 32 years from 1937 to 1969, Beechcraft pumped out 9,000 of various versions of its "Beech Model 18". Some of them, like this one here, took a military designation - C-45 "Expeditor". 1937 to 1969 - hard to believe that a plane first flown when Neil Armstrong was a seven year old boy was still being produced when he landed on the Moon. 

The C-45 version of this little twin-prop six passenger plane served the United States and other allied countries during World War II as a liaison and general duties aircraft, as well as other duties flown by variants for navigation and bomb-aiming training, photography, among others. The Beech 18 also saw airline service all over the world.

THE KIT

PM Models is not a company with a reputation like Hasegawa, Tamiya, Revell or even Airfix. Quite the opposite - it's known for a few nice-ish basic kits of obscure subjects, and a few terrible kits like the T-38 and Nesher. But this one is quite pleasing. It has deeply engraved panel lines on the fuslage - as deep as some of those early new Airfix releases. The rest of the detail is very soft, and a bit flashy. 

There is a rudimentary interior - floor and two bulkheads, two pilot seats and sticks. Windows are clear plastic inserts, installed from the inside. Test fitting of the canopy shows it fits fine inside the aperture for it, but with gaps in places. All the windows are at least pretty clear, though a couple of the side windows have moulding blemishes (little spots).The undercarriage is basic and will need a lot of clean up. The engine facings are pretty basic - think Matchbox of the 70s - and the wheel bays of course have no detail at all. But the nicest thing is that the fuselage parts all seem to go together nicely, based on some test fitting.

The decals are not confidence inspiring, although they seem to be in register. There are markings for a gloss navy blue USN aircraft and a green-on-grey camouflage plane from the Indian armed forces.

Hard to say until I build it, but at the price it's hard to argue against it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Model_18

Richard F

April 2016

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