Pend Oreille Models 1/48 Caudron C.561 By Jim Schubert

History

The extremely refined C.561 was the end of a famous and successful line of racers designed by Marcel Riffard and his colleagues at Avions Caudron in the 1930's. Lamentably, although it was the best looking of the series, it was also the least successful. It failed to qualify for the 1939 Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe; the 2,000 km race around a long triangular course established in 1933 by Mme. Suzanne Deutsch de la Meurthe for airplanes with engines displacing not more than 8 litres. The plane was not entered for the 1937 race due to slow development of the engine; a displacement reduction to 6.5 litres for 1938 rendered it ineligible.

The wings, tailplane and undercarriage of the C.561 and its six cylinder sister-ship, the C.461 were identical with those of its predecessors, the C.450 and C.460. The fuselage, though, was a totally new design providing a flush hood for the cockpit doing away with the windscreen entirely. Consideration was given to attempting to raise the World Air Speed Record with the C.561 but this idea was abandoned along with development of the 8 litre engine.

My interest in this pretty little airplane was first sparked by a photo and a poor 3-view in the Air Enthusiast referenced below. This interest was reinforced by Anders Bruun's article in the Bent Throttles referenced below and by the four part Harry Robinson article in the LeFana magazines also referenced below. My growing interest in this plane reached its peak at our IPMS-Seattle 2004 Spring Show when Pascal Valadier, a part time vendor, from Portland, had a copy of the Pend Oreille Models 1/48 resin kit on his table. Unfortunately, he had only one and the fellow looking at it with me spoke first and bought it. Pascal, however, immediately offered to order one for me.

The Kit

Right up front let me say this is a very poor kit. Rather than just recite a litany of its shortcomings, I'll share with you my thoughts on how I plan to build an acceptable model from this dismal kit.

All is contained within a plastic bag closed by a stapled paper banner at its top. Inside, several other stapled bags hold the resin, white metal, clear vac parts and decal sheets. Only 19 parts make up the kit: 11 soft white resin castings, seven white metal castings and a vac canopy (two spares are included) and two small decal sheets for the maker's name, model, serial, etc. on the fin/rudder. The resin parts are only fair; having many small pits and pips in addition to several bubbles, voids and tears. The instructions are given on two Xeroxed sheets with a typed history in fractured English and in French, three exploded drawings, four small detail drawings and a 3-view.

The poor - and non - representation of fabric is a very big problem with this kit. The sides of the fuselage on the original were fabric over two longitudinal stringers. Pend Oreille has chosen to represent this as a flat plane with two scribed lines for the stringers - shades of Hawk kits in 1948! Pend Oreille has also chosen to ignore the fact that the C.561's ailerons, flaps and elevators were also fabric covered.

The 1/48 JMGT Caudron C.860 that I'm currently building has the same problems in the same places. The parts of the JMGT and Pend Oreille kits look like they were mastered by the same hand; I wonder if JMGT and Pend Oreille are related? On the fuselage of the C.860, I filled the scribed "stringers", sanded them smooth and applied .007" monofilament nylon over the stringer locations. The nylon was drawn tight through a hole through the fuselage at each end of each stringer and secured with thin CA. The three spaces between the two longerons and the two stringers were filled with auto body putty. To do this neatly, I masked along the bottom of the lower longeron and the top of the lower stringer, and at each end, and trowelled in filler. I used a flat chisel blade dipped in lacquer thinner to scrape off excess filler whilst it was still quite wet. When the filler was dry, I sanded it to be flush with the masked longeron and stringer. The facet thus created was then masked to the lower stringer and masking was applied above the upper stringer and the process repeated to create the second facet. The same was done again for the third facet and the whole thing repeated on the other side of the fuselage. I've included a picture of the C.860 fuselage to illustrate the results. The use of Milliput rather than lacquer based filler would probably be quicker and less messy but I prefer the latter from habit and familiarity.

The fuselage has other problems too. The air outlet at the bottom rear of the engine cowling is cast solid. To create a thin edged opening here I will saw away the rear of the outlet step and carve a tapered hollow forward of the cut line. I'll apply a strip of .010" styrene in a matching rebate to create the thin lip of the outlet. This technique is illustrated in the Payen Pa.22 build-article in the June 2001 issue of this magazine.

There's a lot of clear canopy, through which the absence of any interior detail will be painfully obvious. I've no references showing the interior of the C.561 but it is altogether reasonable to assume that it was near enough identical to the well documented C.460 interior but with a more supine seating position and, as a consequence, a greater distance between front and rear cockpit bulkheads. As Pend Oreille placed the forward cockpit bulkhead at the instrument panel station you'll have to cut it away anyway. Also, make a new floor to follow the curve of the lower longeron.

Three copies of the poorly formed vac canopy are included. Scrap them. Pend Oreille would have you place the clear part over the fuselage but have provided no relief in the fuselage to accommodate the thickness of the vac part. As the flush canopy is the defining element in the appearance of this airplane you'd better make a new clear canopy from scratch. I think the way I'll do it is to first clean up and reshape the scalloped areas forward of the instrument panel to make them conform with Harry Robinson's drawing and then, after temporarily joining the fuselage halves, carve a wood plug to fill the cockpit/hood area. I would then fill the scallops with auto-body putty and sand the surface of the white resin, the red filler and the wood into one smoothly developed compound curved surface from the firewall to the rear cockpit bulkhead along the top longeron. When satisfied with this, I would saw out the whole thing with a .005" saw blade from the firewall to the rear cockpit bulkhead along the top longeron. I'd then file away about .010" from the bottom of this three colored male mold to allow for the thickness of the new clear part to be vac, or stretch, formed over it. I'd then saw off the wood part of my mold and very carefully file the red filler out of the scallops down to the white resin.

After the cockpit interior is detailed and the fuselage halves permanently joined, I'd permanently join the halves of the resin upper deck, with the scallops, and test fit it with the fuselage and the new clear canopy. After I was satisfied with the fit of these parts, I'd paint the inside of the scallops with Testors Model Master French Blue enamel and then shoot them with Testors Dullcoat. Pend Oreille call for the airplane to be bleu nuit (Night Blue) but I'll go with Harry Robinson's callout of bleu moyen (Medium Blue); the rest of the exterior will, of course, be gloss. After the scallops are painted and flatted and the interior fully finished, the upper deck resin piece can be glued in place and the clear piece glued over it and the whole thing filled, filed and sanded to perfection.

One more biggie on the fuselage needs attention - the air intake for the engine's induction system. This pre-NACA flush intake is poorly represented. I'd suggest, before joining the fuselage halves, that the hole be cut out cleanly, to the correct shape, right through the resin. An interior for this duct can then be made from Milliput or other filler material.

We still have the fabric covered ailerons, flaps and elevators to deal with. I think I'll saw them off and make replacements, Harry Woodman style, of internally scribed .010" styrene sheet. Note that the split flaps are only visible on the underside of the wing.

Drill the cooling air intake in the front of the engine cowling right through the resin, thin the resin to represent a sheet metal edge and let your conscience be your guide as to how much of a detailed V-12 you want to show behind the intake hole.

The white metal landing gear struts, forks and tailskid are all a bit rough and need careful cleaning up and smoothing. The smaller bits should be replace with metal rod stock. Scrap the wheels and find replacements in your parts box. The landing covers and doors are too thick too as are the resin propeller blades.

The tiny decal sheets look good; two are provided in case the white is not opaque so that you can double them.

Conclusion

WOW! Talk about a model "Scratchbuilt-Out-Of-The-Box" - this is it. It's a great choice of subject, for my tastes, but it is incredibly poorly executed.

References

• Le Fanatique de l'Aviation (Le Fana) No. 149 of April 1982. This is the last of a four part article by Harry Robinson on the Caudron-Renault Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe racers. The last two parts are followed by articles by A. Bodemer on the Renault 4, 6, 12 and 16 cylinder racing engines.

• Bent Throttles No. 9 of December 1998. This is the quarterly journal of the Air Racing & Record-Breaking Aircraft Special Interest Group of IPMS-UK.

• Air Enthusiast #45. Brian Cocks' article on Renault aero engines.