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kevin scott
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Dumas Air Express 1/18" scale as Roscoe Turner's Gilmore Oil branded aircraft

December 1, 2020 · in Aviation · · 8 · 1.5K

More infill projects since my last article. This one is by Dumas Products. It is their kit #317 of the Lockheed Air Express. I decided while I was working on some of the Thompson Racing planes from the '30's that I wanted to build this version of the Air Express, as well as the flown Wedell-Williams Type-44 in the Gilmore livery. The project went together pretty well. I had to fabricate the wheel pants and also decided I wanted to be able to display the plane either with - or without - the cowling. I ended up building a scaled down 1/12" Williams Brothers Wasp engine for the no cowl version, and detailing the vacuum-formed cowl molded in motor - then making them swappable. The Williams Wasp motor is attached with a magnet...once removed, the cowling with it's built in motor can be slid onto the fuselage. Each has it's own hand carved propeller.

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4 additional images. Click to enlarge.


8 responses

  1. Hi Kevin @heywooood!
    I have to say I am really amazed by your work here: this is true craftmanship!
    I then went through your first article and found equally amazing stuff.
    I so agree about the meditation our hobby offers.
    Well done!

  2. That is one beautiful model.

  3. Lovely build - that has to be huge!

  4. Hi Greg. The model has a 30” wingspan but due to its design doesn’t seem to take up much space. I have it hanging in the lounge.

  5. Very nice, great work!

  6. thank you, Robert - it turned out better than I had hoped it would. The Dumas kits make for a solid basis or foundation for this type of adaptation. The Wedell Type 44 project also worked out well enough (and I didn't have to buy decals for it - they were provided with the kit) - I just had to make a relatively passable motor and create the wing root fairings from filler. The rest was pretty much to the kit plans, although I did alter the landing gear a bit too..

    4 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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