1/144 Minicraft C-135A Stratolifter

Gallery Article by Bob Leonard on Feb 13 2018

 

      

This is the Minicraft 1/144 KC-135A Stratotanker converted into a C-135A Stratolifter. While the U.S. Air Force was waiting for its first true jet strategic airlifter, the Lockheed C-141A, they purchased fifteen C-135As and thirty C-135Bs. This model depicts 60-0370, the first C-135A delivered to the Air Force on 12 August, 1961 at McGuire AFB, New Jersey. The main difference between a C-135A and C-135B are the engines. "A" models had P&W J57 turbo jets, while TF-33 turbo fans powered the "B" models. 

Click on images below to see larger images

To make the C-135A, I removed the molded on director lights on the forward part of the fuselage between the front landing gear and the wing. Stratolifters did not have these and I converted the Flying Boom into a fuel dump pipe. Lastly, I removed the refueling area floodlight from the top of the tail fin. For the paint scheme, I went with the delivery finish and used Tamiya AS-12 Bare Metal, Floquil Platinum Mist tinted with a few drops of Testors Sea Blue, Xtracolour X104 International Orange for the Arctic markings and Testors flat black for the nose cone. 

Minicraft makes a great KC-135A. The only filler I used was where the bottom the wing attaches to the fuselage, and that was just a 1mm smear of Perfect Plastic Putty. Inexplicably, the Minicraft tool makers completely messed up the framing on the clear portion of the cockpit. The fantastic Caracal Models decal sheet I used, USAF C-135 General Purpose Markings CD144004, has the appropriately shaped cockpit decals; however, I elected to use a Boeing narrow body cockpit decal from Liveries Unlimited solely because the machine I was building had silver framing around the cockpit windows. Anyone building a Minicraft KC-135A/E/R should grab a copy of the Caracal decal sheet. With it you can build the majority of the different paint schemes and Commands that used this machine as a transport, command post, spy plane and tanker. 

I kept weathering to a minimum befitting a brand new aircraft just months into delivery.

Bob Leonard

Click on images below to see larger images

 

Photos and text © by Bob Leonard