Roden 1/48 scale Fairchild AU-23A Peacemaker

Roden’s release is the first injection-molded 1/48 scale plastic kit of any version of Pilatus’ workhorse, and it builds into a nice representation of the aircraft.

The parts feature recessed panel lines, a little flash, a slightly pebbly finish, and a few ejection-pin marks. The flash is easily removed. I took care of the rough surface texture with a coat of primer, sanded smooth. Most of the ejection-pin marks are in hard-to-see areas. Unused parts include smaller wheels and different cabin and cockpit doors.

Pay attention to the first few construction steps – there are a lot of holes that need to be measured and drilled before any gluing.

The interior has fiddly seats for the cockpit that look good when done, as well as a control panel with decal details, rudder pedals, and joysticks. There are even separate handles for inside the doors.

A Gatling gun is included to mount firing sideways through the port door, but I couldn’t get it to fit together and ended up leaving it out of the model.

The fuselage closed around the interior, but I needed filler along much of the seam to make it disappear.

I deflected the separate elevators down slightly and set the flaps partially deployed, trimming the actuator struts a tad for fit. I added the landing-gear legs but left the wings off to ease masking and painting. The prop has separate blades; I assembled mine feathered, as often seen in photos.

The clear parts are a little cloudy but are thin and fit well, although I did have to sand a little to finagle the windshield into place.

Marking options included an overall olive drab USAF aircraft and two Thai AU-23s in dark green, medium green, dark tan, and camouflage gray schemes. I chose the more colorful of the latter with a shark mouth and black under the wings with white script.

I airbrushed the camouflage freehand using Model Master enamels, then applied Pledge Future floor polish in preparation for decals.

Even on the glossy surface, the decals wanted to silver and required multiple applications of Micro Sol and Solvaset. I painted flat black between the letters under the wings to eliminate the silvering.

After adding the wing racks (with nice bomb cradles) and all of the roof antennas and other equipment, my Peacemaker looks every bit the rugged warrior. I particularly like the model’s stance.

I spent about 25 hours on the model, much of it painting. It takes a little more work than a Tamiya kit, but Roden’s Peacemaker nails all the little details and is a good build of an interesting aircraft.