Beechcraft D17S

[Barneydhc82]

Here is Roden's D17S Staggerwing in 1:48 scale. CF-BJD was built for Imperial Oil and delivered on floats which would have been a real pig to dock. The kit is very nicely detailed and all of it fits very well.

I chose these marks as a buddy at Langley, BC took on the job of finishing a 15 year restoration. With many set-backs along the way it was finally test flown but on the 5th flight the gear would not extend.. An emergency was declared and a recovery crew was standing by at Abbotsford as George performed a flawless wheels up landing on the grass.

The prop was slightly damaged , the flaps requiring re-build and a few scratches needed re-painting.

Barney

[hrtpaul]

Nice work of a pretty plane. Well done mate

[VH-WAL]

Staggeringly good! Cant say anymore I am about to crash after a 16 mile walk on the Pennine way today, yawnnn oh my aching feet

[RHB785]

Absolutely beautiful model of an absolutely beautiful aeroplane. I hope to be able to buy a couple of the 1/72 scale Eastern European kits of this aeroplane and do them up in the Australian wartime RAAF and post war civil colours. I've seen the aircraft at Maitland years ago but in those days I wasn't at all interested in photography so I have no pics of her.

Regards,
RHB.

[tor lives]

Very nice indeed!!!!.
TOR

[Barneydhc82]

Thanks for the comments guys...always appreciated. Interesting note to me at least is that the civil registration , CF-BJD is my Grandfathers initials

Barney

[erussell]

Very nice model indeed. Well done.

I hope to be able to buy a couple of the 1/72 scale Eastern European kits of this aeroplane and do them up in the Australian wartime RAAF and post war civil colours.

Good luck with that. The Sword (and AZ re-issue) are long out of production. The only way we could source one for a customer was to raid my collection for a kit and print some A39- decals. They do turn up at swap meets etc so start looking now.

[Adam the Akrodude]

Ya blowin' the corks off our hats mate!

Truly one of the most elegant of aeroplanes - terrific build. Out of interest, one of my aviation heroes was a guy called John Jackson. "Ol' John" as he was nicknamed was shot down and killed over Port Moresby in a Kittyhawk on the 28th April, 1942 during the darkest of times for Australia in the Pacific War. The Japanese were knocking on our doorstep and Australia had but one squadron of Kittyhawks based at Port Moresby to attempt to stop the Japanese aerial armada from clobbering Port Moresby.
Why I mention Jackson is because pre-war he was a wealthy grazier from Queensland and owned a Staggerwing, one of the very few in this country at the time and an aeroplane in fact faster than the fastest RAAF aerplane pre-war. Jackson did not need to go to war as he was in his early 30's and could of taken a instructors job (which he did for a short period after returning from the Western Desert campaign. He went to Port Moresby to take command of the very newly formed 75 Squadron, with most of his pilots very green with no more than 10 hours on Kittyhawks. What then commenced was the legendary "44 Days" of operations of 75 Sqn against the Japanese leading up to Jackson's death.
Jackson's story is amazing and I do think he is one of the unsung heroes in this country. The RAAF of course has not forgotten him at all and 75 Sqn does celebrate his memory during major milestones like the 70th anniversary of the forming of 75 Sqn three years ago.

A bit of trivia of a one time Staggerwing owner in this country!

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

Cheers

Adam

[RHB785]

Hi Eric,
I looked up the AZ site earlier today and found them to be OOP as you say. I don't know much about the short run manufacturers. Do they bring moulds back into production after a while or are the moulds had it after 1,000 or so kits have been put through them? Do they repair or remanufacture the moulds at all? Or produce new ones from time to time? I should think the Staggerwing would be a popular enough aeroplane for them to justify the cost of keeping it going as long as possible. It would be very popular with Bitish, US, Canadian, Australian and NZ modellers so would they consider doing it again? Sorry for all the questions but these are matters I don't know much about.

Hi Adam,
Is it possible that John Jackson's aircraft is still on the Aussie register? I didn't know much about him but guessed he must have been fairly wealthy as he took some movie camera footage of some or the local people when he was up in PNG and sent it home to his wife. To own a movie camera in those days you had to be well off and he thought the bare breasted local women were very alluring,(his own words). Not sure what his wife thought of this but there were also some small inklings of squadron life in the movies, probably as much as he could get away with.

Regards,
RHB.

[tor lives]

Here is the one that lives in my stash



When I get around to her, she will be a done as a WIF Racer. She really is a very pretty aircraft.....the Lear 35 of her day.
TOR