The 1/72 Monogram HU-16D Albatross

My latest build is an extensive reworking of the old 1/72 Monogram HU-16 Albatross. First issued in 1957, this kit is a true classic, and represents the later HU-16D version, with the taller vertical fin and extended wings. I remember building this kit in my basement sometime in the early 1970's, when I was around ten or eleven years old. It was the first model I spray-painted, using a rattle-can of Testors silver. (Anyone remember watching Flight from Ashia, featuring HU-16's from the Air Rescue Service?) For a kit that is old enough to be eligible to receive Social Security benefits, the fit is good, though I did need to putty and sand the seams on the nose, fuselage, and wing/fuselage joint. Typical for Monogram, the shapes and dimensions look spot-on. I can't vouch for their accuracy, but the 1/48 scale plans of the Albatross provided in Warpaint Series No. 92 match up very well with the kit parts. The major drawbacks are a complete lack of interior detail, toy-like working landing gear, and the airframe is covered with raised rivets that are way oversized.

Before starting, I had intended for this to be an easy, nostalgic, out-of-the box build. But I soon decided to at least sand off all the rivets. Then, I decided I wanted the rear crew door open, which necessitated scratch-building at least part of the rear crew compartment. Then I convinced myself that it wouldn't be that much harder to open the hatches over the pilots' seats, which called for scratch-building the entire cockpit. Lastly, I decided I just couldn't live with the kits' over-scale, working landing gear, either.

So much for an easy, nostalgic, out-of-the-box build.

I was now facing a lot of work, most of it scratch-built. Fortunately, there are some excellent references for the Albatross that are readily available: Steve Ginter's Naval Fighters No. Eleven, Grumman HU-16 Albatross; Warpaint Series No. 92, Grumman HU-16 Albatross; Grumman Albatross: A History of the Legendary Seaplane, by Wayne Mutza, and the old, reliable Squadron/Signal Publications HU-16 Albatross in Action. All were essential in scratch-building the interior details and improving the landing gear.

I began by scratch-building the rear cabin. The layout of and equipment used in the HU-16 rear compartment varied greatly, depending on the branch of service and mission. Since I was building a Navy search and rescue plane, I chose a cabin lay-out with two seats and three bunks - nothing else would be visible. I found two suitable seats in my spares box, and added armrests made of wire and thin styrene rod. The bunks were made of very thin sheet styrene, with styrene rod framework. Photos show the rear cabin walls and ceiling on many HU-16's were covered in cloth padding, but I chose the easy route and used styrene strips and rod to replicate the ribs and stringers inside the rear fuselage cabin. The rear cabin bulkhead has two side-by-side doors, one leading to the auxiliary power unit, and the other to the toilet. I scribed the doors into the sheet styrene bulkhead, and added a small porthole window to each door and filled them with Micro Krystal Klear. Rolled-up tissue paper, painted yellow, represents a life raft stored against the aft bulkhead. I also used styrene rod and other small styrene pieces to replicate the hinge of the emergency escape hatch on the starboard side of the rear cabin. The kit rear cabin windows fit very poorly. I cut away as much excess plastic from the windows as I could, and cemented them in place, and used clear canopy glue to fill in several big gaps in the windows. Once completed, the rear crew cabin was sprayed Tamiya NATO Green. Not much of any of this detail can be seen through the open rear cabin hatch, but it's satisfying knowing it's there.

The cockpit pushed my meager scratch-building skills to the limit. The flight deck on the HU-16 has a deep recessed walkway between the seats, and it was quite a trick to get the dimensions and positions of the flight deck and all the bulkheads correct. After multiple attempts, I finally got something that was somewhat accurate, and also fit in the fuselage. The pilot and co-pilot seats came from a 1/72 Minicraft B-24, which were heavily modified and detailed with styrene strip and rod, and finished with 3D printed seat belts and harnesses. The instrument panel, made from layers of sheet styrene, was detailed with 1/72 scale instrument decals. I robbed control columns from a 1/72 C-47 kit, which closely matched those used in the HU-16. The avionics and radio racks behind the pilot's seat was made with styrene sheet for shelves, and rod for braces. The radios and other avionics boxes were scrounged from the spares box. A radio operator's seat and table were also scratch-built. I made the overhead center console with a section of a 1/48 TBM Avenger center instrument panel, filed and sanded to shape.The overhead hatches above the pilots' seats were cut away, and new ones made from sheet styrene. I rolled them against a hobby knife handle to give them the proper curved appearance.

Before closing up the fuselage halves, I added several ounces of lead fishing weights to the nose to prevent it from being a tail-sitter. This kit is very tail-heavy, so when you think you have enough weight, add at least half again as much. Once closed up, I cemented the windshield in place, but the fit here was terrible. I shimmed and filled as best I could, but fit is sloppy, and looks it. The kit includes a boarding ladder, which doubles as a rear stand to keep the model from sitting on its tail, but it's inaccurate in size and shape. I scratch-built a new one, based on a drawing in the Naval Fighters book, and sprayed it Tamiya Titanium Silver. My references showed that most HU-16D's had an additional anti-collision light added to the base of the fin, just below the leading edge of the horizontal stabilizer. I recreated it with a clear tail light scrounged from the spares box, cemented in place, and faired into the spine with putty. In the process of gluing the fuselage halves together I inadvertently pressed on and broke loose two of the round cabin windows. I scrounged my spares boxes and came up with a section of clear sprue the same diameter as the windows. I cut two sections a quarter-inch long, polished one end of each, and pushed them in place with clear canopy glue. They wound up looking better than the kit windows. The two UHF antennas on either side of the vertical fin were molded solid, so they were removed and replaced with wire bent to shape. Two small tail lights at the base of the rudder were drilled out, painted silver, and filled with tiny drops of Micro Krystal Klear.

The outrigger floats had tie-down rings added to the rear of each float, made with thin wire and super-glued in place. The kit engines come molded into the cowls, and are very poor representations of the Wright R-1820 radials. I ordered Reskit resin replacements for the engines, and once painted, they look terrific. Exhaust pipes on the rear of each cowling were cut away and replaced with small sections of styrene rod, with the ends hollowed out. The kit props have excellent hub detail and the blades needed just some trimming and removal of some mold lines. I detailed the wheel wells by adding additional ribs and stringers made of styrene strip, plus some wires for hydraulic lines and some scrap pieces for actuators and pumps. The kit landing gear is designed to retract, but the parts are way over-scale. I purchased a white metal gear set from Scale Aircraft Conversions, but it was designed for a different kit. Making it fit the Monogram wing and fuselage was a real trick. The main struts are too short, so spacers made of sections of the kit struts were added to the gear wells in the underside of the wings. The nose gear well was completely scratch-built, boxed in with sheet styrene and detailed with styrene strips and pieces from the spares box. To get a more accurate nose gear strut, the hinged part of the kit strut was grafted onto the lower section of white metal strut. The grossly inaccurate kit wheels were replaced with a much nicer resin set from Reskit. The wing, which comes in five pieces and is 16" long when assembled, was strengthened by adding a brass rod spar. The main gear wells in the upper wings were detailed with ribs made of styrene strips. The wingtip lights were molded solid, so they were cut away, filled with Micro Krystal Klear, and painted Tamiya clear red and green.

I decided to finish the kit in the markings of a US Navy search and rescue plane based at Midway Island in the mid-1960's. The upper fuselage was sprayed Tamiya Gloss White. The tail planes, bottom of the hull, and wing were sprayed Model Master Acryl Gloss Engine Grey. The outrigger floats, wing tips, rear fuselage stripes, and center upper wing section were sprayed Tamiya Lemon Yellow, which looked brighter and more accurate than Chrome Yellow. The high-visibility yellow fuselage stripe and wing areas were bordered with stripes sprayed Tamiya semi-gloss black. Once painted, I sprayed the model with a coat of MicroGloss.

Decals came from several sources: national insignia, service designators, prop warning stripes, and anti-glare panel decals came from Print Scale sheet #72-136. An ancient Micro Scale sheet, #72-184, provided the upper wing walkway, bureau numbers, and upper wing 'RESCUE' marking. The 'MIDWAY' station designator on the tail fin was a custom decal made by Above & Below Scale Graphics. I wasn't satisfied with the color of the Print Scale or Micro Scale wing walkway, so I painted over the Micro Scale walkway with a lighter and more accurate (to my eye) shade of grey. The RESCUE arrows and the small decals on the external wing tanks came from my decal catalogs. Another coat of MicroGloss sealed the decals. The final step was making antenna wires with thin transparent nylon thread.

Like all of my models, once on the shelf all I can see are the mistakes, but I'm still pleased with the results. For a kit that was first issued almost 70 yeas ago, it still builds up nicely and with some extra work, it can make a fine model of this important and often-overlooked aircraft.

20 additional images. Click to enlarge.