Kit: No. 72-053
Scale: 1/72
Manufacturer: Ardpol, from Joe's Models, 973-239-7682
Price: $39.90
Comments: Cast-resin, 61 parts (1 acetate sheet), decals
Pros: Good casting quality, lots of detail, good decals
Cons: Poor instructions, poor fit of interior, struts have no locators, missing parts
Several manufacturers developed naval aircraft during the 1930s and produced planes designed for overlapping missions. Among the plethora of short-lived carrierborne biplanes was Curtiss' "Helldiver" dive bomber.
Aside from a vacuum-formed kit, this purposeful biplane has been overlooked by kit manufacturers. Ardpol, a Polish company, has recently issued a resin 1/72 scale example of the O2C-1. The gray resin parts show good detail and only a few air bubbles. Small details suffered from some flash but were easy to clean up. The decals were beautifully printed and provide markings for a single U.S. Marines O2C-1. That's the good news.
The bad news is putting the kit together. Even expert builders will be handicapped by the poor exploded-view instruction diagrams. Vague locations and some omissions kept me scratching my head. For example, the fuselage had no locating points for the cabane and landing-gear struts. The instructions show three tubular bomb racks, one large one under the fuselage, and two smaller under the wings. However, my sample kit came with one of each, and not enough large and small bombs to hang on them. I left them off. But I did get five machine guns to pick from to place a single one on the Scarff ring in the rear cockpit. Tailplane support struts are included, but vaguely shown already in place in the instructions.
Building the interior was tricky, again mainly as a result of the poor diagrams, but also from poor fit into the assembled fuselage. I ended up clipping off some of the framework that wouldn't be seen through the open cockpits. A large sheet of acetate is provided for the front-cockpit windscreen, but there is no diagram to show how to shape it.
I liked the radial engine and its hemispherical cover, but the exhaust ring behind the engine wouldn't fit around the fuselage. I had to cut most of the headers down, then cut the ring in two to make it conform.
The wing parts are nicely molded and appropriately thin. Small resin pins in the lower wings and tailplanes help align them on the fuselage.
The wings had alignment holes for the struts, but the struts had no pins to go in them. I carefully positioned the interplane struts after dressing the ends so they would fit the curvature of the wings, then tacked the upper wing to the struts. I studied the three-view diagrams in the instructions and a single picture in Swanborough/Bowers' U.S. Navy Aircraft Since 1911, to figure the anchor points for the cabane struts. Mind you, all the parts must be attached with super glue (or epoxy), so getting the right positions the first time was important. The landing-gear struts were similarly difficult, made worse by a missing football-shaped axle fairing. I carved a new one from one of those unused bombs.
The final assembly was complicated by having to drill holes for the doubled interplane brace wires and the tailplane control cables, and by having to paint the fuselage and wings before final assembly. I used two gauges of nylon monofilament for the rigging.
Painting instructions were basic, with no mention of the propeller-tip colors. With the exception of the wheel-cover designs, which came apart, decaling was the easiest part of the whole project. The Bureau Number on the tail did not match the photo of this aircraft in my reference.
While the finished model was satisfactory, the road getting there was not. You'll want to have plenty of experience and show plenty of patience before trying this 1/72 scale resin biplane.
- Paul Boyer