C-124A/C Globemaster II

Anigrand Craftswork, 1/72

Reviewed by "Bondo" Phil Brandt

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Retired MAC nav Bondo’s never forgotten his eighteen-month recip romance in the late Sixties, that excellent worldwide adventure, from Thule to Ethiopia to South Vietnam, in the gigantic-for-the-time “Douglas Racer.” Three million rivets flying in formation in each C-124 formed the backbone of USAF’s heavy airlift for over twenty-five years. As MAC’s “go-to” trash hauler, C-124s could be seen at some of the most remote locations on earth, hauling everything from cattle to bulldozers to nukes, yes nukes.

This curmudgeon spent a quiet afternoon last summer at Tacoma’s McChord AFB, communing alone with the nicely restored “Shakey Bird” resting up on a gentle rise overlooking all those new C-17 Globemaster IIIs. It was a sad-but-happy time, remembering all that had gone before and all those great people, some of whom wore patches on their flightsuits that said “25,000 hours.”

Kit Chronology

Bondo’s been waiting for this big chunk of resin for, oh lessee, about twenty years since he bought the labor intensive, El Crude-o Grande, 1/72 Airmodel vacuform kit, adding Jerry Rutman’s nice resin detail set about eight years ago. This kit was followed in the Bondo Industries stash by the 1/144 Welsh Models C-124 release, an overall excellent kit.

I had for all intents given up hope that there would ever be a 1/72 C-124 kit to replace the Airmodel vac, but kept putting off the inevitable plastic beating I would have had to undergo. In all fairness, the Airmodel kit can be built, but only through excruciating labor intensity and with the significant help offered by Jerry Rutman’s resin detail set, as did master modeler Pat Hawkey in the July 2006 Fine Scale Modeler. Fast forward four months. Enter Arnold and those fearless master modelers at Hong Kong’s Anigrand Models, and now it’s a whole new ballgame.

I thought the Anigrand P6M Martin Seamaster was large, but this chunk of resin waters mah eyes! Each fuselage half is in turn cast in a separate fore and aft section, the join area keyed for strength and positive alignment. The wings are done in top and bottom halves. The vertical fin and horizontal stabilizers are one-piece. Tip heaters and a radome are included for building a “C” model Shakey.

Molding

The fuselage/tail surface castings are smooth and clean, very reminiscent of Planet and other Czech resin releases. However, the wing surfaces have a decidedly rougher texture which will require some wet sanding with 400 or finer grit. No warping was immediately evident. Engraving is crisp, ever so slightly more aggressive than, say, on 1/48 Tamiyagawa kits. The only casting discrepancies that were immediately noticeable are the many small bubbles immediately beneath the surface in the extreme nose area and wingtips. The right fuselage has some very small pits in the side of the front fuselage half, and the tips of the stabilizer and vertical fin have larger pits. It’s all fixable, though; can you say, “Acryl Blue”?

I do wish Anigrand had molded the large stabs and rudder separately, because in the real deal the gaps between these components and their associated fins are much more pronounced than the simple engraved parting lines of the kit. To accurately depict these areas is going to take either some very careful Dremelling of a “V” trench between the components, or, much better, the separation via razor saw of said components and the rounding of the rudder/stab leading edges.

Engine Cowlings and Propellers

The two-piece cowlings are Bondo’s biggest complaint. In short, they slope noticeably and too sharply toward the props, giving a more streamlined appearance than they should; the real profile has a “fatter” look toward the front. Having studied the full scale drawings that accompany the elderly Airmodel kit, I note that the cowlings pictured have the identical incorrect forward slope as do those of the Anigrand release; hmmm! Jerry Rutman’s solid resin cowlings are much closer to the correct profile, but unfortunately have a cast-in, nine cylinder radial engine face whereas the R4360 is seven cylinders per row (Anigrand includes separately installed, seven cylinder engine faces). Additionally, Jerry’s oil cooler fairings are much less detailed (that is, solid tapered lumps) than Anigrand, and Jerry’s cowlings don’t have protruding exhaust pipe detail as do the Anigrand. So...there’s trouble in River City. I rounded the forward, sharp lips of the Anigrand cowlings with sandpaper, and that does help appearances somewhat, but not entirely satisfactorily for this MAC puke. I’ll probably go the “Close enough for government work” route, and stay with the Anigrand version.

The chord of the Anigrand props is noticeably too narrow when compared to my personal pics and to those in the excellent C-124 Ginter book. These props were beeg, wide hummers and had large cuffs, much more prominent than those modeled by Anigrand. So..it’s back to ol’ Jerry’s props which are much truer to form, albeit with pitted resin. Just leave out Jerry’s prop hubs, which are much larger than the more correctly-sized Anigrand ones.

 

Click the thumbnails below to view images full size

Cockpit

Cast-in to the fuselage forward halves are rudimentary cockpit components such as flight deck floor, rear cabin bulkhead and the main instrument panel (no instrument detail included). A center console, control yokes and the nav’s instrument panel/partition are furnished but, strangely, no side consoles up front or engineers panel on the right side. Granted, with all the windscreen/canopy framing, one will have to really look to notice, but, without the side consoles, the flight deck sure looks like a livingroom. Seats are not bad, but no harnesses or belts are included. Aft of the nav station the vertical bulkhead with an engraved door to the cargo compartment area completely disregards the real arrangement. That is, the perpendicular (to the fuselage) crew bunk and sloped hatch immediately in front, through which crewmembers exited, climbing down a long ladder to the cavernous cargo deck.

Other Details

For those modelers planning to do the much more ubiquitous 124 “C” version Anigrand furnishes the distinctive, cartoonish radome and gasoline-fired wingtip heater pods which some folks mistake for tip tanks.

 
Landing Gear

Main and nosegear struts are adequately detailed, but I question whether they’ll remain unbent over long term support of such a large, heavy model. I’ll probably drill out the resin axles and use brass rod. Gear wells are extremely shallow, with a dab of structural busy-ness meant to just give the impression to the casual observer that there’s really something there.

With the large tires and gear doors, I don’t see this omission as a big deal. Jerry Rutman’s flattened (a bit too much, IMO) resin wheel/tires are slightly more substantial, and have molded-in treads; Anigrand’s have neither. Jerry’s set also includes metal gear struts, but they’re not molded as well as the Anigrand resin ones. Your call......

Clear Parts

The large vacuformed windscreen/canopy is fairly thin and very clear. Framing lines are VERY light, and may take extra effort to accurately mask. The over fifty (!) Portholes may be even more of a construction problem than cowls. To meet the challenge of myriad transparencies, Anigrand merely provides a 1"x 2" clear sheet impressed with, again, VERY faint circles and ovals. The cutting out and gluing-in process looks to this curmudgeon like a whole lotta practice bleeding goin’ on. The quick-and-dirty answer may be to fill in the windows with thick plastic rod stock, sanding and filling, and then using black decals. A second method, perhaps more promising, is a procedure used by some inventive modelers down here in CenTex: the outer fuselage area surrounding each window is firmly taped over with high strength, clear packaging tape, and clear casting resin is poured from inside the fuselage into each window depression. If the taping is properly done, minimal, if any, sanding/polishing will be needed when the tape’s removed after the resin is cured. One extra detail with this method: if the inner circumference of each porthole opening is not painted prior to pouring the clear resin, the natural buff resin color may be what is seen when the job is finished, not the proper interior green. I’m planning some experimentation here, because with fifty windows, it better be right!

An alternate window solution would be to go the liquid Krystal Kleer route, but that’s beaucoup white glue to dab onto the fuselage......

Decals and Color Schemes

A single, relatively small sheet includes markings for only a MATS bird, whereas MATS changed to MAC in 1966, and Shakey kept flying until 1975. Prop warning stripes/stencils are noticeably absent. For almost $150, I would think that Anigrand could’ve made alternate color/markings schemes available; even the 1/144 Welsh kit offers three schemes.

The MAC airframes which carried boy nav Bondo around the world ‘67-‘70 were, by then, all NMF, which, even with panel shading, could be somewhat boring. I will probably do an earlier MATS–we said it stood for “Might Arrive Tomorrow Sometime”–scheme with the white fuselage topsides and Arctic Red forward and aft fuselage stripes. For more MATS markings, check out the Minicraft C-97 kit; it’s got prop warning stripes, too. And, for those lucky enough to have acquired Jennings Heilig’s wonderful two-sheet C/KC-97 release of five years ago, you’ve got it made!

Instructions

Only a single large B&W sheet, printed on both sides, is provided: a no-text, exploded parts summary on the front and a two-view, all NMF MATS bird on the back, with color callouts and decal locations.

Bondo and Shakey...together again! And, please don’t take my specific criticisms the wrong way. I’m overjoyed to see this kit released, and I hope Anigrand will do a companion 1/72 C-133. IMO there are no problems in building this kit that can’t be handled by average-to-moderately-skilled hobbyists.

Of course, if your idea of a showstopping kit flaw is when two Tamiyagawa parts are misaligned by .005", I’d save your righteous bucks and buy five more 109s or Mustangs!