To my eyes, the 1930s Northrop Gamma is a beautiful airplane, with the 2D version being "the fairest of them all". The Gamma was an extremely versatile air frame, and in it's various derivations, saw service as a high altitude research craft, long distance Antarctic explorer, cargo hauler, record holding racer, passenger plane, observation plane, trainer, and fighter bomber.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Gamma
Fiddler's Green offers a model of the 2B "Polar Star" which successfully flew across the continent of Antarctica in 1935, and is the only surviving Gamma. The out-of-the-box FG model has a few shortcomings: the right wing is upside down in both the regular and large versions. The right wing is correct in the generic version which is included in the large folder, but there are no markings on it, 'cuz it's generic. Sheet 2 in the regular folder, and sheet 3 in the large folder contain the one man canopy needed to convert the model to a 2D version, but the blank grey indicator on the fuselage wasn't modified to accommodate the shorter canopy. I also found the wing fairings to be unusable, and had to draw new ones.
Northrop only built three 2Ds, reserving one as a high altitude research plane. The other two were purchased by TWA for use as mail planes. After being retired, one of them was picked up by a wealthy Mexican businessman with sympathies to the government of Spain. He shipped the craft to Spain where it was employed by the Republican Spanish Air Force for light transport and coastal observation during the Spanish Civil War.
Which brings me to my recolor. During image searches for Spanish Civil War vehicles, I came across two illustrations of the SCW Gamma 2D, one in green and the other in grey. The grey recolor would have been much easier, but I liked the green one better and took the more difficult road. I think it came out pretty nice. Some subtleties disappeared with the reduction in scale. Towards the end of the build I slopped a bit of glue on the right top wing surface
and had to make a panel patch from light weight printer paper to hide it. I hate the way the patch looks, but it's an improvement over the glue smear.
On to the pics: