Douglas XCG-17

i thought the monogram was a dc3?

****** Actually you may be more right than wrong but Monogram kit numbers 5603 and 5607 were marketed [is that a real word?] as C-47s with 5603 having markings for USAAF and the RAF. There are probably a few detail 'glitches' that would have to be considered, depending on which C-47 you wanted to build. Also of note is the fact that they came with the 'rifle grommets' in the fuselage windows so the passengers could stick their rifles out and take pot shots at attacking enemy fighters. Now wouldn't that have been interesting?

Later editions of the Monogram kit No.5610 was marketed as a DC-3. How accurate any of them are, as to specific type, I wouldn't venture a guess.

Cheers - Jim.

ok, thanks. i've only seen the dc3 and was unaware of the c47. were there issues about the landing gear being wrong as on all the 1/72? i hope you build and post pics of the build, of thatxcg-17. i've see a couple of pics and it's a damn interesting bird. yeah, maybe, maybe you could hit the earth out the sides....but another ac? have to be an accident.

Isn't it really more of an early C-47 (no suffix); since only the cargo door was about the only major external difference? Early C-47's retained the tailcones, and thin, "taper-bladed" props, as in pre-war DC-3's. However, the Monogram kit doesn't have the nose-mounted fresh air scoop, does it? I don't have one to look at, but isn't the kit also Pratt and Whitney engined? (Most pre-war DC-3's, i.e. non-suffixed models, were Wright Cyclone engined, as opposed to the PW engined DC-3A's...) If so, it comes closest to the aforementioned early non-suffix C-47. So, although a C-47, it will take a bit of minor conversion work to make a far-more-common C-47A or C-47B.

The Skytrain version also came with a handful of paratroopers - useful towards that glider project or possibly a conversion to a civilian DC-3 diorama featuring an airstrip in any banana republic you care to mention. ;-)

WmB

yet problematic if you want to build the C-47 into a DC-3 with

****** Ho ho Greg, I think you've just given me more reasons to make it a motorless glider :-) Good stuff and thanks. I'll have to check into those engines if I get to building a power jobby. Thanks much. cheers

- Jim.

wondering still about the landing gear. i think bill b was the one to say all the 1/72 kits were inaccurate?

What was the alleged inaccuracy? I remember a discussion regarding how some wartime aircraft supposedly had their landing gear "beefed up" with stronger-forged castings; but this does not seem universal; and I have examined photos, and there does not seem to be an obviously visible difference photo-wise (if indeed they *were* strengthened); so I do not think it would be all that apparent on models. If anyone can point us to some photos showing some obviously visible, and drastic, differences...then point us to the link, as I have been curious about this since it was mentioned awhile back.

But back to the engines...were *any* kits ever released with the Wright Cyclone engines (and their completely different cowlings)? The Minicraft 1/144th kit comes close, by accident, as even though the kit contains facsimiles of a 7-cylinder-bank PW engine...the cowlings ar *so* mis-shaped, that they could just as easily be reshaped to represent either type.

i just remember that they were all called inaccurate. i think some old kit was closest. frog? heller? it was 3 years ago, when i did the 1/48 russian bird. i ended up doing a lend lease version because of the nacelles. i'm not sure about the engines. wasn't there a resin 1/72? where's tom and his tame black hole storage system?

The most accurate DC-3/C-47 plastic kit ever remains Monogram's venerable 1/90 scale jewel that was recently reissued.

Nope, not me. I had no idea what if any differences there were in all the various C-47/DC-3 variants. It seems that I remember reading somewhere within the past decade a short treatise on such but I can't put the old mental finger on who-what-when.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

From the 1930's, up until the opening stages of WWII, it is pretty easy to tell which DC-3/C-47 from another; but once the war got up and running....

...and we shall not even mention to post-war era...when pretty much all rules got thrown out the window.

:o)

Yep....and I am working on a couple of those right now. It's saturated with rivets, but once you sand them off about

90%, you are left with a *very* nice representation of a flush-riveted surface; which in model scales, looks "about right". And you are correct in that the shape and proportions are spot-on, better than any other "modern" kit that has been released (with perhaps the possible exception of the Monogram 1/48th kits). And for an ancient kit that has seen so much mileage (mould-wear-wise), the fit is still excellent. Aftermarket enhancements are almost nil; which is why I posted elsewhere about possible "small" 1/72nd, or "large" 1/144th scale Aeroclub (or similar) engines which might be used to improve that area of this 1/90th scale kit. There is also an HO scale (1/87th) representation by Roco, but I have never seen one (but going by their HO scale armor pieces...)

:o)

"...Tame black hole storage system". I like it! It fits.

Because of a temporarely crammed garage with difficult at best access to the MAI Library I have been mum on most research requests on RMS of late.

The XCG-17, however, is right here in one of the file cabinets and it includes a closeup shot of the belly mounted tow hook. MAI Research Service minimum fee is $10 which in this case includes the tow hook photo and five other photos of the XCG-17. There are individual photos of the front, rear and right front 3/4 view as well as longer distants shots of the glder being towed by a B-24 and by two C-47s. I can throw in a couple of good nteror shots, too. The tow cable release is tiny, looking pretty much like an outboard motor hand starter cable between the seats in the cockpit, too small to be seen in 1/72 and probably the same in 1/48.

I started a conversion of the Airfix C-47 in 1969. Dave Boksanski showed me how to chop plastngs to fit, so the pods over the engine mounts are Frog He 219 cowlngs with thick sheet styrene on the front carved and polished to shape. The cockpit interior and cabin are completely detailed (pre-after market detailing materials), wings cut off for repostioning, nose reshaped and that is as far as I got with it. One of these days I'll get or make the right landing gear and finish the thing. I can use up some SNJ metal pant before it dries up.

In the mean time, e-mail me if you would lke the packet.

Happy modeling,

Tom

******** Well, I'll be darned. There is hope. Thanks Tom. E-mailing you as soon as I get this one off to RMS.

Thanks. cheers - Jim.

PS: Thanks all - good discussion and many valid points.

damn crs!

Not especially well, unfortunately. It seems to be based largely on the old Nitto 1/100 scale DC-3/C-47 kit which had a whole raft of problems.

That said it's certainly not what I would consider terrible and is head and shoulders above what Minicraft claims is a Lockheed Electra. The recent R4D-5 release of the DC-3 addresses at least some of the original kit's problems.

Mine, or yours?

Bill Banaszak, MFE sr. ;)

OK Al, how does Minicraft's 1/144th kit stack up?

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.