Roden’s C-133 fills an important void in a line of American logistics aircraft. Douglas built 50 of the strategic airlifters in the late 1950s and they served the U.S. Air Force until the early 1970s when the C-5 arrived at squadrons.
Optional rear loading ramp and forward entry door positions are given in the kit. A flight deck with basic detail is provided and the cargo bay has a deck and interior rib detail. The engraved panel lines and surface detail are executed nicely with the exception of a little pebbly finish on the aft fuselage and the main gear sponsons.
The lower left wing on my sample was badly warped but that appears to be an isolated case; checking another kit showed that part to be nice and true.
Unfortunately, Roden didn’t mold the vortex generators ahead of the ailerons, and the flap track fairings on the left wing are longer than those on the right.
More easily corrected problems are the blanked-off engine exhausts and the kit’s round nose; it’s actually faceted to match the forward-facing windows. The kit represents the third production C-133A off the assembly line and has the aerodynamic beaver tail fuselage fairing. But my references note that the beaver tail was added after the seventh aircraft. The instructions show the circumferential forward fuselage reinforcing bands, but they aren’t on the model.
Fit of most parts was good. The forward halves of the four-part fuselage virtually clicked together, although the tail section halves exhibited a minor mismatch. The wings rode a touch too high in their fuselage slots and the upper surfaces don’t fair into the fuselage saddle. So, I enlarged the slots to drop them down a bit. The engine nacelles’ seams also needed filler. Plus the main landing gear was fiddly and hard to assemble in good alignment. Thinning the inside edges of the sponson wheel openings would alleviate some fit problems.
I opted to fill the porthole windows with Fusion acrylic glue rather than the kit-supplied inserts, but the delicate windshield’s good clarity shows off the flight deck well. Both the crew entry door and the cargo ramp are butt-glued to the model, so for strength I added wire pins to the attachment points. I simulated the main cargo ramp’s nonskid material with paint.
Colors reference Vallejo paints, with markings for a 436th Military Airlift Wing aircraft which the instructions date as 1970 — I believe it’d be closer to 1966. The thin decals worked nicely and conformed well to all the curves. The yellows were faint, though, and the blue for the National Insignia was too light; I substituted spares-box insignia for those. Not shown in the color instructions, I painted the ice detector panels on the outboard wing leading edges with flat black.
In my young Navy days, I stood at runway’s edge while a C-133 made a max performance, demo-type takeoff. The WHOOM and pressure wave when that big bird went by was no-kiddin’ impressive and I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for her ever since. I won’t debate the wisdom of where I stood, by the way.
But at 1/144 scale, the impressionistic value of Roden’s C-133 kit is big. Roden has hit one out of the park here and I enjoyed the 35 hours I spent building it.
Note: A version of this review appeared in the November 2019 issue.