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Starr Miniatures' 1/144 Short Sandringham

By Graham Mason

Overview

Having been an inactive modeller for quite a lengthy spell, I just needed something special to get me going again. Then along came the mailman with Starr Miniatures latest resin kit, a 1/144 Short Sandringham. Those who know me will verify that just the mention of a 1/144 flying boat turns me into the mature aged male equivalent of a screaming teenage schoolgirl pop music fan. I already have two different Ansett Sandringham decal sheets from Hawkeye and a little bird told me that Paul and Steve may have got their heads together recently, which just may result in a Qantas set being on the drawing board as well - gotta love rumours. Here's hoping I will need to order more than just one extra Sandringham, and soon.

The Kit

I will be very honest here and I hope Paul won't mind, the castings are not to the high standard of detail obtained by Cobra and other professional resin outfits and I wouldn't recommend it as a first venture away from "shake the box to build" plastic kits. Having said that, it is to the standard of previous Starr kits and the shape and scale of the kit does look very good. One of the wings was warped but the usual hot running water trick for resin parts fixed that fairly quickly. I have already started building and intend to spend more than the usual amount of time on this one, but I expect the result to be stunning and like I said previously, I have plans to build more. The instructions state that there are no scribed panel lines or window outlines as these differed from one airline to another and indeed in some cases from aircraft to aircraft within the same fleet, we're already in front here as this saves filling them and maybe, just maybe, Hawkeye will even do some window patterns decals for it.

Resin parts are L&R wings, fuselage, separate nose piece, L&R tailplanes, vertical fin, 4 engine nacelles and L&R wing floats, both in 2 halves. White metal parts are 4 propellers and 2 undercarriage support legs, a tug and trailer are also included for those wanting a land based setting. There are no supports supplied for the floats but strut material from Strutz (brass), Aeroclub (plastic), or the scrap box will do nicely.

This is an aircraft I thought I would never see commercially produced in 1/144 and I sure hope it won't be the last resin flying boat from Starr Miniatures. This kit will complete a nice Australian trio within my flying boat collection featuring the three Australian airlines, Ansett Sandringham flying boat, Qantas C Class Empire flying boat and TAA Catalina amphibian. The Catalina was actually transferred to TAA's New Guinea operation where the undercarriage was removed to increase payload which made it a flying boat also, might just have to buy another Minicraft Cat.

Conclusion

I highly recommend this kit for the golden age airliner fan, flying boat fan, prop engine fan, or just any aircraft fan with average or higher modelling skills who doesn't mind a little extra effort. Now which will this one be, Ansett red tail or Ansett boomerang tail, I'm so excited I can't even toss a coin.