Part 2: The Build, Completed

Construction It is apparent that the basic kit offering from Minicraft is designed to build several of the C-130 variants. To build the AC-130H version, the builder is required to do some surgery on the left fuselage half. This is clearly indicated in the first step of the instructions. The cutouts for the gun bays and left sponson extension are fairly well marked, but be careful with the one for the 105mm Howitzer (at the aft end of the fuselage half). Do not cut the bottom of the opening on the line, until you dry fit the gun bay behind it. Cutting on the line will remove too much plastic from the bottom of the opening. Trust me. I did just that, and had to replace some of the threshold and trim again. (See the photo)

Once the gun and landing gear bays are in place, the rest of the construction is fairly simple. There is a decent amount of room for weight in the space between the cockpit floor and the front bulkhead, and a tiny amount of room in the nose. I used about a dozen regular BBs secured with cyanoacrylate glue. I did use Squadron White Putty on most of the major seams. The fit of the right wing was off a bit, causing misalignment in the panel lines with the fuselage top. I carefully trimmed the wing root until the panel lines were lined up. This caused a slight step at the forward wing/fuselage joint, but a little putty took care of it. The clear cockpit glass area did not mate with the fuselage opening as well as I would have liked. I used putty around it, carefully sanding the joint smooth and rescribing the panel lines. I used white glue to fill one nagging little gap at the front glass/fuselage joint since there were windshield panes very close to the joint. Paint I chose to paint the model as the overall Gunship Gray aircraft. The color for the interior of the aircraft (and I assumed the landing gear bays) is listed as "light gray". I chose to use Neutral Gray for those areas. I used Model Master Enamels throughout. There must be something strange in the air, since I seemed to have more than my usual trouble with the painting this time. Nothing serious, but I had some aggravating moments totally unrelated to the kit itself! Decals In this scale, most of the decals are tiny…really tiny...but there are very few markings on the small decal sheet. The decals were a somewhat slow releasing from the paper backing, but laid down on the model with no problem. They were applied using a small puddle of Microset. I used both Microset and Microsol, and the decals reacted fine. I did have one decal that silvered, but I am certain that problem was due to the painting issues that I had during the build, and not the fault of the decal. The identical decal on the opposite side showed no silvering at all. Final Assembly The main landing gear struts are small, fiddly bits of plastic. It took some effort to get them into the narrow bays and insert the 90-degree mounting tab into the small hole in the inside wall of the gear bay. Looking at the gear after installation, I think it would have been simpler had the mounting hole been in the roof of the bay, and the tab straight out the end of the strut. The top of the strut touches the roof of the bay anyway, and that would have made the installation much easier. This is probably a moot point, since the attached gear doors pretty much cover the entire assembly, blocking almost any view into the bays. The nose gear was installed with no problem at all.

Conclusions I enjoyed building this model. With no major issues, the parts fit was good overall. It is a simple kit, with virtually no interior detail. I'm not sure how much detail anyone would want to add to the model, since it would be so small that it could only be seen under strong magnification. Any cockpit details that were added would be impossible to see through the small window openings. While the kit is a bit pricey, the build up was actually fun for me. I think modelers who like the 1/144th "airliner scale" will love the kit. It is possible that beginners might have some problems with the modifications necessary for this particular variant. Only because of that, I think I would recommend it for those with moderate experience. I wish to express my sincere appreciation to Minicraft, and John Noack, for this review sample.

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