Alaska Coastal Airlines Vega model 5 Floatplane

 

 

 

the Alaska Coastal Airlines Floatplane version will get the Full Monty with a seated interior, cockpit detail, opened side door and the cockpit windows sawed up to get a sliding section for the tracks on the wing..... 

...the canopy cut up to create a sliding portion 

The Vega had this unusual door between the cockpit and the passengers.....shorter at the bottom so it would fit into the fuselage when raised up. The MPM kit bulkhead piece has the outline of the door molded in and cutting it out and bending it up into position worked well.  

These seats from Valom are a good match for the Vega seats... 

....turns out the Valom seats are too tall...cutting them down like the seat on the left seems to work....thinking this will be a three seat aircraft (and pilot) 

...about ready to seal this up after some PE work....paint will still get attention....the red thing in the cockpit is meant to be a fire extinguisher....only the bottom half of the pilot seat is seen here...the back is part of the door into the passenger compartment.... 

....assembled fuselage with interior showing....in all, satisfied with the look...the seatbelts are a big boost.... 

....while deciding if the box art color was right (yellow/dark blue) or the instructions (orange/dark blue) a photo was found of the actual aircraft in service in Alaska...and it was actually gold and dark blue....question answered....and the kit decals are not based on this aircraft....replacements will be made...

.....check the struts...the kit pieces are not correct at all and scratching the structure will be needed....and the ladder on the side goes all the way to the float, not hanging in air... 

....this was the easy part....the gold layer....lots of masking to come for the dark blue layer..... 

...a little Photoshop work and a web search...and an Alaska Coastal Airlines logo is done..... 

...painted white circles to create background for the printed decals...one of these various sized decals will fit....many different were printed to be sure.... 

...the results after some touch up using closeup goggles.... 

...when it came time to build the struts...it was clear this is not what they looked like......the cool silver outlines of the windows....also a kit invention.....but, cool so will be left in place....applied with a paint pen.... 

....folks, the instructions are just plain wrong about this strut system...they tell you to sand these landing area dimples both off...when they are obviously needed for the struts...and they DON'T tell you to mount the landing area dimples on the bottom....which is where the actual strut supports would go....it didn't make sense they would invent a whole new way of mounting floats rather than use what was already there for a regular landing gear setup.....lesson learned...and in time...this time.... 

....this photo is the goal.....in the future, someone will post a full file of the correct strut system that we can all 3D print...until then...its a bit of trial and error but still interesting....

BTW, the dimples are a bit out of scale.....but this is a 1/72 kit.... 

...using rods....drilling holes in the floats and fuselage actually allowed some adjustment and adds strength to the whole system...a winner...and now, to figure out the smaller struts..... 

...by golly...it worked....drilling holes the answer for all the struts...1mm rods used for the smaller struts and 1.2mm for the larger.... 

....maybe this fuselage will survive with a little touchup.... 

....after all this drilling, etc. it seemed like a good idea to invest in a new set of floats from a spare kit. these pieces are not the best fit and i am hesitant to sand or fill too much given the shiny paint...if the 3D version arrives...it will replace these... 

....decals on and final assembly is close...... 

 

 

 

 

...couldn't stand this look anymore and repainted the wing with the original AK Extreme Metal Gold and will give it an overcoat of AK Gauzy protective varnish before doing any masking...the stabilizers turned out OK with the AK Gold paint ...so, off it goes...