Kit: No. 4812
Scale: 1/48
Manufacturer: Czech Model, distributed by Squadron Mail Order, 115 Crowley Drive, Carrollton, Texas 75011
Price: $49.95
Comments: Mixed media, 94 parts (70 injection-molded, 25 resin), decals
Pros: Unusual kit subject, good decals
Cons: Poor interior parts fit, some vague panel-line scribing, poor propeller spinners, windshield and main landing gear fit poorly, box art and instruction sheet errors
The JRF Goose light amphibian transport plane was originally produced by Grumman in 1937. Designed to shuttle New Yorkers to Miami and back, it quickly became a corporate utility aircraft and a rescue plane for the military. Goose production ended in 1945, but survivors can still be found plying the waters of Canada, Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and the Caribbean.
Inside the box, Czech Master has bagged the gray and clear injection molded parts separately from the yellow and gray cast-resin parts. The kit's 10-step instruction sheet includes a parts map, assembly drawings, and painting instructions. The large decal sheet has markings for three U.S. Navy and one RAF Coastal Command aircraft.
The kit's panel-line engraving is generally good, but there were a couple of spots where shallow lines had to be rescribed.
There were also problems with some of the cast-resin parts. The bombs and bomb racks in my kit were poorly formed, so I solved the problem by leaving these parts off my model. The legs of both cockpit seat platforms were broken, too.
Assembly was not a "shake-the-box" procedure; careful test fitting was required at every step. Any misalignment of the wheel wells (parts 30 and 33) in the fuselage will be hard to fix later.
Since the cabin windows are designed to be installed from the inside, I dipped them in Future floor polish and masked them before gluing them in their openings and closing up the fuselage.
The engines and propellers fit nicely with the cowls, but the resin exhaust manifold assemblies should lay closer to the wing's upper surface. The assembly drawings aren't clear about where the oil cooler intakes should be mounted; refer to the box art for clarification.
The chord of the wing is too large over the cockpit and cabin. I had to file and sand the leading and trailing edges to fit the wing between the windshield and the top of the fuselage.
The most difficult task was installing the two-piece windshield. There's quite a mismatch between the assembled windshield and the top of the fuselage that requires a lot of finesse, persuasion, and elbow grease to make an acceptable fit.
I found that the landing-gear struts wouldn't fit into the wheel wells. With the tops of the struts fitted into the holes in the wells, the gear braces bend the struts outward several degrees. Correctly mounted, the braces don't clear the edges of the hull around the wheel well openings. I had to enlarge the openings.
The propeller spinners seem to be designed to flush-mount on the front of the propeller hubs. I couldn't find spinners of this type in reference photos.
The high-quality decals went on beautifully over a clear-gloss top coat. A final clear flat coat sealed everything up.
Using measurements taken from original Grumman specification sheets, which differ slightly from those shown on the box, I found the model's dimensions close to dead-on accurate. Assembly difficulties required more building time than I normally need for a model of this type - I spent more than 40 hours on my Goose. Experienced modelers will find this kit a challenge.
- Allan F. Jones