1/72 Heller C-160Z Transall SAAF

by Stephen Murray

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Built for the SAAF/Africa Group Build here on ARC.  Kit is made by Heller and is based on the Bobcat kit that was kicking around a few years back.  As it was the bobcat kit, it had a lot of moveable parts plus the cockpit glazing was atrocious.  During construction, I had to use a good bit of filler around wing root join, engines and the nose area.  There was also a good amount of swearing added in and Ii have lost count the number of times the kit was taking flying lessons.  A lot of gaps needed filling in on fuselage join as well.  The cockpit is extremely basic to say the least with no instrument panel as such so I modified one I had that came out of an old B707 that was scrapped. I painted the interior a dark green to try and hide lack of detail inside cockpit. I refused to use the glazing that came with the kit and instead opted to use Humbrol clearfix which seems to have worked okay.  For the colours I relied on the help of fellow modellers and of course our SAAF books we have.  Model was brush painted.  SAAF markings came from a generic SAAF sheet that Biltongbabe has in her stash.  All in all a challenging build and one I won't repeat for a good while (until another transall scheme shows up!!).

Stephen

Photos and text © by Stephen Murray