CMR 1/72 Piper L-18C Super Cub
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Introduction
The first Cubs were built by Taylor and Piper in the mid thirties. They
soon parted ways and ran separate companies making Taylorcrafts and Pipers.
William Piper’s J-3 Cub is still the iconic US lightplane. In 1949
the old Cub got its first big makeover when the PA-18 Super Cub was introduced
with myriad modern touches such as an electrical system, a starter, flaps,
optional dual wing tanks and the fully cowled engine introduced on the
PA-11 in 1948. The PA-11 was really just a tarted up J-3. The biggest
difference in the Super Cub was the installation of a larger engine to
replace the J-3s’ 65hp Continentals and Lycomings. The larger engines
ranged from 105 to 150hp. Over 9,000 super Cubs were built by Piper. The
subject of this kit is the L-18 military version of the Super Cub, which
was used by Belgium, Israel, the Netherlands, Turkiye, Uganda, Uruguay
and the USA. The biggest visual difference between a civil and a military
Super Cub is the greater area of glazing on the military plane.
The Kit
This is another well-executed kit from CMR of a subject not apt to be
produced by any major kit manufacturer in this scale. Revell Germany has,
though, recently introduced the L-18 in 1/32 scale.
The kit has 31 parts finely cast in CMR’s standard cream-colored
resin, three in an extra strength white resin, three in extra strength
black resin, two clear vac formed canopies and a small fret of Eduard,
partially pre-painted photo-etched parts. An Eduard die-cut mask set is
included to aid in painting the canopy framing. The decal sheet provides
markings for nine different airplanes: four Luftwaffe, three Belgian and
two Norwegian.
The instructional material includes two pages of assembly instructions,
nine pages of colors and markings instructions, eight pages of reference
photos and one page of instructions for using the painting masks. All
in all this is a very thoroughly detailed kit. Optional parts provide
two sizes of main and tailwheels.
Conclusion
This kit does full justice to the universally recognized Cub and is,
I believe, the first 1/72 scale kit of the L-18 military Super Cub. It
is extremely well done. I understand that Czech Master Resin intend to
release a kit of the civil Piper PA-18 Super Cub in the not too distant
future.
My thanks to Czech master Resin for providing the kit for this review.
References
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Again, I used sources found from Google searches on the internet.
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