Cessna L-19 Bird Dog Maed Models 1/50

[Gene K]

Background (A tale of wishy-washiness):

An old friend asked me for a display model of the Cessna L-19 , one of the many airplanes he flew while he was in the US Army. He sent me an old Sterling stick and tissue kit



but the wood and cutting was not the best ... so I looked at a newer model - the Guillows kit



That was much better in terms of quality, so I proceeded to start the model ... but then decided I could give him more detail with a plastic kit - so searched for a suitable model and found this:



nice model, but requires time consuming parts prep since it's a limited run kit - meaning a LOT of effort is required to clean up the parts. Nevertheless ...

Since the kit only contains USAF markings, the challenge was finding US Army schemes, and during that search, I came across this paper model.



I looked for more paper Bird Dog models, but didn't find much, so (for the moment) decided to go with this model as it looked pretty good.

Gene K

[willygoat]

That Guillow's kit is nice. I've got it about 80% complete on my work bench. Working on using card stock as the skin over half of it, and leaving the other half exposed.

[whulsey]

What is the scale on the Guillow's kit?

[willygoat]

Honestly, I don't know. It isn't marked on the box. The wingspan is near a foot though.

[Gene K]

Originally Posted by whulsey

What is the scale on the Guillow's kit?

18 " wingspan versus "real one" of 36' works out to 1/24 scale.

My main modeling addiction is Radio Control aircraft around this size, so will likely do the conversion from rubber power. But I'll more likely scale up the graphics on the Maed paper model and do a Depron (foam sheet) RC plane from that.

Gene K

[Wad Cutter]

I hope this will help.

Aeronca-Grasshopper
Aeronca-Grasshopper | Aircraft |

Cessna-BirdDog
Cessna-BirdDog | Aircraft |

Piper-L4-Grasshopper
Piper-L4-Grasshopper | Aircraft |


wc

[Gene K]

Originally Posted by Wad Cutter

I hope this will help.

Appreciate the links, WC. I had seen those, but generally avoid Fiddler's Green since most of their planes look rather simplified and cartoonish. Maybe not so much with the L-4, though.

Gene K

[Gene K]

I did a quick taped-together mock up just to check out the fit, etc and was impressed. It became very obvious, however, that some formers would be required.



The paper model pdf includes an excellent three view that shows fuselage sections, albeit in 1/72 ... so I scaled those up to match the 1/50 model ( elected to stay with that small scale because I think my friend will be better able to appreciate it at that laptop size).

I was hoping the model would have more/sharper detail than it does, but the shape appears to be pretty accurate (looks like a Bird Dog), so I'm totally satisfied. I'll likely have to redraw the jaggie non-vector lines when I do my RC model, however.

Gene K

[felixdk]

Dumas has a nice laser cut O-1 with a 40" wingspan. There's also one from Herr Engineering and one at 36" from SIG that's out of production, but sometimes available on eBay. The SIG one was originally a nice old Berkeley kit from the 50s/60s.

[richkat]

Have to say the Dumas kit is VERY nice, had one converted to RC (before the crash) that was very detailed and looked great.......Rich