PBY-5A Catalina RAAF Academy 1/72
Catalina is one of my favorite naval aircraft. I remember in the early nineties when it was in the shop window, painted black, and I could only dream of buying it. So after thirty years I am going back to my dreams. Almost a year ago I found Model Academy on Ebay with extra RAAF decals added. Despite the fact that the seller was from across two oceans and the model cost much more than the standard edition of Catalina, I did not hesitate for long. The Academy set is not too complicated, but it is made very well, everything fits together, practically without the use of putty. Only the assembly of the fuselage required light sanding. At first I had reservations about working with black colored frames with parts, but it turned out to be completely trouble-free. To supplement the sparseness of the equipment I bought a set of PE parts. The set was also quite old because it came from 1997, but everything fit well. The only and main problem was the time of assembly of the landing gear. I followed the instructions and first assembled the landing gear before assembling the fuselage. However, in the long run, despite my efforts to be careful, the landing gear was damaged. I accidentally bought a set of brass landing gear castings for the PBY-5A, which finally ended the problem. I supplemented the wing gunners' compartment with Browning machine guns from my spare box, because the ones from the box were very poorly detailed. Also the engines and engine covers were resin sets. I invite you to watch the presentation, where the history of the aircraft is described. Cpt. R will return soon...
Well done, Capt.!
Thank You John @j-healy
Very nice!
Thank You!
An excellent model and equally excellent diorama, capt. R! It was a pleasure to follow your thread!
Thank You @fifeten !
You do such impressive work ! This Catalina looks great !
Thank You @ssgt
Love the different hues of black, that is not an easy thing to do, Captain @lis. The Catalina is a sleek plane for sure!
@fxrob I have to make predhadeing and postahadeing by semi gloss black 🙂
And it works very well, @lis 🙂
This is a beautiful build, Bernard @lis
Both, Catalina and the diorama, do look great.
It was a pleasure to follow your building progress.
@johnb Thank You John! you always support me.
@lis - WOW... just wow. The entire build looks fantastic Capt., but even more impressive to me is the level of your photography skills. Both the greyscale and full color images would fool 90% of the population into thinking it's the real thing.
@brithebuilder
I’m glad that You like my project ☺️ photos are nothing special. Just my IPhone ☺️
Impressive model and impressive photos, Capt. R!
Thank You George!
Nicely done - a good-looking Cat!
Thank You!
Very well done, you made that kit shine. It looks great in your pictures, I really like the diorama.
Nicely done all round capt. R.
Thank You @kalamazoo ! Your suggestions during build was valulable
Another outstanding model in an outstanding diorama, Bernard (@lis). It was a pleasure following your build. Well done.
Thank You George! @gblair