Dusty is a crop-duster from the small town of Propwash Junction. He has always dreamed of being a racer — but crop-dusters are supposed to dust crops, so Dusty has to stick to his daydreams while he does what he was born to do: dust crops.
But one day, after a tiring day on the fields, Dusty goes to talk to his best friend, Chuck the tanker truck. Chuck has always told Dusty that he could be a racer if he put his mind to it. So, they go to talk to the Skipper, an F-4U Corsair, to see if he will train Dusty.
After much prodding and a change in the Skipper’s attitude, he decides to help teach Dusty a thing or two about racing. “Strut Jetstream,” or Dusty, turns out to be a great racer — but you’ll have to watch the movie yourself to see what happens!
There are 16 parts in this snap-together kit, and they are mostly detailed and nicely molded. Since the parts are pretty small, I built with only the pieces I needed for that step, rather than sanding and fitting all of the parts like I normally do. I followed the instructions, which are nice until you get to the stickers; only one side is shown in the instructions.
I had a few problems with Dusty. The landing gear is so small, and the fit is so hard, that I pretty much mutilated the piece. Thank goodness for super glue!
Also, the canopy does not fit very tightly. The flash on the propeller is impossible to remove because of the spacing, so don’t try it or you’ll end up hacking a propeller blade off!
The blue racing stripe is very hard to get aligned with the racing stripe on the other side. Also, I think Sticker D7 might be printed backwards. Other than that, the stickers are beautiful.
The kit took me 1 hour and 10 minutes to complete, but if you want it done quickly and you pay attention you might get it done faster. The best part of the build was probably seeing it all come together. The worst part was probably trying to put the landing gear in, and then not bumping it through the modeling process.
Overall, I think this is a great beginner’s kit. I would recommend it.
Carley is Chuck Davis’ 12-year-old daughter. Although this is her first FSM review, she’s no stranger to modeling. She’s built kits for several years and won several awards.
Note: A version of this review appeared in the January 2014 FineScale Modeler.