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Sword's 1/72 Stinson L-5 Sentinel

By Al Superczynski

History

The USAAF's need for a liaison aircraft led to a 1941 order of six commercial Stinson Voyagers for evaluation as YO-54s. The AAF was highly impressed with the versatile little aircraft and ordered it into series production in its military guise in 1942, the first 275 being produced as 0-62s before the designation was changed to "L" for liaison. Almost 3700 L-5s were built for the USAAF and RAF. The US Marines received 306 Sentinels originally built for the USAAF and diverted some of these to the Navy. Marine and Navy Sentinels were designated OY-1, with some later modified as OY-2s.

While the official name was Sentinel, another popular name was often applied to the L-5, "Flying Jeep." L-5's saw service in all theaters during WWII, but are probably best remembered for their work in the Pacific and Asia. Of all the observation aircraft built in the US during WWII, only the Piper L-4 was produced in greater numbers than the Stinson L-5 Sentinel.

The L-5 also saw action during the Korean War - some Marine Corps birds were even armed with bazooka-style rocket launchers! The aircraft remained in service with USAF units into 1953, and with the US Army as late as 1962 when they were redesignated U-19 to conform to the new joint service identification system.

The Kit

Sword’s latest 1/72 kit is the third in this scale of the Sentinel that I know of. I have the very crude Beechnut kit and an extremely nice resin kit of unknown origin. I wouldn't be surprised if there were/are vacuum-formed kits available but I've never seen any.

This limited run injection molded kit contains 39 finely detailed parts in gray plastic and four in clear. The wings have nice sharp trailing edges and good rib detail. Thankfully there isn't any phony overdone "fabric" effect anywhere on the airframe parts. There are optional canopies, landing gear struts, and fuselage halves (with a separate vertical stabilizer) for either an Army or Marine aircraft (more on this later). There's very little flash on my example, mold alignment is nearly perfect, and the sprue gates are almost as small as on mainstream kits. No photoetched or resin parts are included. The Propagteam decal sheet provides markings for an L-5 of the USAAF's 153rd Liaison Squadron while attached to the First US Army in Normandy during 1944 and what is purportedly an OY-1 named "Lady Satan" of VMO-4/5 on Iwo Jima.

Here’s where the confusion starts. The serial number supplied is for an OY-1, which was one of the L-5B’s in the USAAF order. I can't find any pictures of an OY-1 or L-5B with the type of fuselage and canopy Sword would have one use according to their instructions. The L-5 fuselage depicts fabric covering over a metal tube framework, while the kit's optional fuselage is smooth (metal skinned apparently, although it might have been wood) and has a raised rear deck area with a correspondingly modified canopy. I've found text references to some aircraft being modified to OY-2 standards, but no pictures. Could this possibly be an OY-2? The decal sheet is titled "Stinson L-5/OY-2 Sentinel" but the vertical fin markings read "OY-1".

The cockpit is made up of nine parts, including three for the characteristic internal framing, plus an instrument panel with very little detail - plain gauge faces and bezels is all you get here. There are no provisions for the very widely used ambulance versions but those shouldn't be hard to do from scratch. Another interesting possibility would be a floatplane conversion since some models of the L-5 had such a provision built in.

The only real difficulties I foresee in building this kit are the canopy assembly and wing installation. The canopies are molded in right and left halves out of necessity and are fairly thin. Fortunately there's a frame down the middle on the real thing but smoothing the seam without losing detail will still take a lot of care to get right. Adding the wing without making a hash of the clear areas on the canopy should prove very interesting as well. Don't forget to provide for two degrees of dihedral as it sets up.

One other thing that worries me is the strength of those tiny landing gear struts. They may bow over time and it might be a good idea to use some scratchbuilt metal replacements just to be on the safe side.

Those into superdetailing might want to open up the nose air intakes and install some dummy engine cylinders, add more detail to the cockpit, and replace the exhausts with hollow tubing, but even OOB this kit should build up nicely into a real cutie.