Czech Master Resin 1/144 Douglas DC-2 By Jim Schubert

History

The story of how Douglas came to dominate the commercial airliner market is pretty well known. In 1933 Boeing introduced the first truly modern airliner the 247, which cruised at 190 MPH compared with the Ford Trimotor's 95 MPH, but then blundered seriously in marketing it only to their own United Aircraft consortium member, United Air Lines. Other potential buyers were told to wait until UAL 's 60 deliveries were completed. Tommy Tomlinson, President, and Jack Frye, Vice President of Operations, of TWA were not going to wait and, in 1932, put out their own specification for bids from other makers. Douglas' proposal was judged the best and the Douglas Commercial Model One, or DC-1, was begun. Only one DC-1 was built, extensively tested and repeatedly damaged but it led to the DC-2 a real 247 beater. The DC-2, cruising at 170 MPH, was not quite as fast as the 247 but it had more seats, more room and more comfort and could haul more freight or mail as well making it, on balance, a more efficient and profitable airliner. The 247 was immediately doomed to commercial failure as no other airline would now buy it and only 75 were built. By comparison, 199 DC-2s were ultimately built, including the DC-1 and several military derivatives before it was superseded by the DC-3 in 1936.

The Kit

The presentation appears in CMR's familiar resealable plastic bag with a very nice computer rendering of two of the kit's decal options, American Airlines and Transcontinental and Western Airlines, facing out on one side of the bag and the extensive, colorful, decal sheet facing out on the other side - very attractive. Inside the bag, the parts are sealed in several compartments of additional plastic bagging and are accompanied by seven pages of printed material. One page of four isometric exploded , and one orthographic detail, drawings constitute the assembly instructions. One page, each, relates to placement of the decals for the four livery options - TWA, AAL, EAL and PAA . The last two pages list the registrations for three of the four fleets but not for TWA - a puzzlement.

There are 12 parts cast in a pale cream colored resin, 15 parts cast in clear resin and five parts cast in white metal. Follow-on kits will have the undercarriage parts cast in a tough black resin rather than the brittle white metal of the early kits. All of the parts are well cast and are completely free of bubbles, voids, and warps. Trailing edges are delightfully thin. At first glance it appears the cast clear resin windows for the passenger cabin are much too large to fit in the window openings. Petr Buchar, owner of CMR, explained to me that the windows go in edgewise, not as upright flat panels as shown in the exploded drawing. Approached this way, the windows are a good snug fit. Follow-on kits will have the instruction drawing revised to show this. The windscreen and cockpit roof are cast as one clear piece to simplify construction and painting. Such scribing as there is of panel lines, etc. is quite light and should be chased with a scriber to enhance it a bit. The fit of the parts is quite good with the wing/body joint being especially outstanding; no filler needed here. The locating tabs for the tailplane halves are a bit deeper than their slots in the fuselage but it is a simple matter to trim the tabs a bit for a good tight, fillerless joint.

To their credit CMR point out in the instructions that the AA plane has the main entry door on the right side.. You'll have to fill the outline on the left and scribe a new one on the right if you elect to do the AA version.

The decals are beautifully printed and, except as noted below, are in perfect register.

Nit Picks

1. The "Light Red" areas noted for the AA livery should actually be the same orange as on the decal sheet.

2. The red in the TWA letters and numbers does not quite fill the black outlines. Use a fine red pen to fill in the edges and then spray a coat of clear, or of decal film, over the retouched areas to fix it.

3. The propellers have the later Hamilton-Standard "Bullet" domes over their hubs. These early airplanes all had the cylindrical hubs with visible counter weights. This is an easy correction to make.

4. The main entry door should have a porthole window as shown on CMR's drawings. Use a #56 (.047" - 3/64") drill to make a hole for this and fill it with white glue, which dries clear.

5. The small lavatory and galley portholes are also missing. Use the same drill for these as for the door. The CMR drawings show these windows but have misplaced the galley window. It should be directly opposite the main entry door, rather than aft as drawn.

6. There is an intake and a third light in the nose of the airplane; these are not addressed in the kit.

I suggest that you buy two clear MV Lenses, part number 600-4, for the landing lights and drill a shallow cone with just the tip of a #50 (.070") drill in the flat faces provided on the nose of the model to receive them. Drill another cone with the tip of a #60 (.040") drill on the center line between, and above, the landing lights and fill it with a drop of white glue to create a lens for the third light. The fresh air intake should be made with a #56 (.046") drill and painted dull silver inside. Refer to the drawings and photographs in the reference cited below for these details.

Conclusion

This a great little kit of a generally neglected but historically very significant subject. Kudos to CMR for bringing it to us in such good fashion. The existence of this kit begs that it be compared with the DC-3 from Minicraft (see following review) and I must say that I think it compares very well. CMR, with far fewer resources, have produced a kit to the same level of quality and completeness as Minicraft. This one requires a bit more work than the Minicraft but the end results will be the same. I especially like that CMR do provide passenger cabin window openings rather than the 1/144 standard of opaque decals.

A big thank you to Czech Master Resin for the review sample.

The second edition of this kit will come with markings for five different European DC-2 operators and will have the optional larger fin/rudder and tailplane. The third edition will provide parts and markings for exotic users of DC-2s and the fourth edition will cover the military versions of the DC-2/C-32/C-33/C-39.

Somewhere between this kit and Minicraft's DC-3 kit , I see the CNAC DC-2 1/2 coming into view.

References

There are many but you need only one -

• Douglas DC-2: Stan Dudek, Michal Ovcacik & Karel Susa, 4+ Publications, Prague, 2004, ISBN 80-902559-8-1.

I paid $35.00 for my copy at Emil Minerich's Skyways Model Shop in Seattle. The book was reviewed by our publisher in the August 2004 issue of this magazine.