Classic Airframes 1/48 Curtiss P-6E
By Dennis Ugulano
Brief History
The P-6E was the ultimate development of the long line of Hawks. Forty-six were ordered by the Army in July, 1931.
The P-6E was used to equip three squadrons, the 17th, the 33rd and the 95th Pursuit Squadrons with only the 17th having Hawks on strength exclusively. Even though the P-6E had generally favorable handling characteristics, it is interesting that of the forty-six production aircraft, twenty-seven were destroyed in accidents.
The P-6E served throughout the mid-thirties and was retired from service in September 1939.
A more detailed history can be found at https://www.airbum.com/pireps/PirepPeanutP-6E.html.
The Kit
When a customer brought this kit to me, I had to research Classic Airframes as I knew nothing of the company. The best I can tell is they came into existence around 2000 and it seems they are currently out of business, or at least their web site is down. They were a very ambitious company, producing a good number of kits in 1/48th scale that were ignored by the larger manufacturers. They used a low pressure molded system that from my research is less expensive to purchase and maintain than the high pressure systems.
The P-6E is a well molded kit with very little flash on the parts. The attachment points are heavy and require careful cutting but after years of building short run injection molded kits, this was no problem at all. The decal sheet is very well printed and on register. The windscreen is vacuform and you have two of them. The resin parts are very nice but have very heavy attachment points. A razor saw will be needed to remove some parts and sanding will be required to remove excess resin from other parts.
The Build
Interior
The fuselage halves are cut out and cleaned up and the fit is good. Some minor thinning was needed, especially in the headrest area. There are no locating pins but, again, this is a characteristic of short run or low pressure kits.
The cockpit assembly is very straightforward with a little trimming needed to get the parts to fit. The plastic parts are a little thick so they must be thinned some to get a good fit. Everything went together as designed and this assembly takes about an hour to complete.
To assure a good fit with the headrest and the back of the aircraft, I attached the cockpit assembly to part 9, the top rear of the fuselage. While this was drying, the exhausts were inserted and the radiator was trimmed and fitted in one fuselage half. The cockpit assembly and top of the fuselage was glued to one half of the fuselage and allowed to dry after alignment was correct. After this was dry, the fuselage was closed up, the wings, horizontal stabilizers, nose vent and fuel tank were attached. This allowed me to perform all putty work at one time. There is a minimal amount of putty work necessary and the soft plastic speeds up the process.
After sanding, the wings (including top) and tail surfaces were painted FS13538 Yellow and the fuselage was painted Olive Drab. The decals were applied to the wings and tail and the tail was attached. The fuselage was painted Olive Drab to just forward of the radiator and the nose was painted Black to the OD line. Both halves of the nose decal was applied at the same time so they can moved into proper alignment. The decals are excellent and will allow themselves to be moved with water until they fit just so. After removal of all water, a mild setting solution was used to set the decals. The balance of the fuselage decals were added at this time. The white diamond decal behind the headrest is too big and needs to be trimmed to fit.
Undercarriage
The landing undercarriage is probably the most difficult part of the build. I used the full wheel pants so wheel opening must be enlarged to accept the wheel. The pants were painted white and when dry, the owl talons decals were applied. This is a bit tricky but they do go on reasonably well. A little paint touch up and they look good. The wheel strut is painted black and white and then attached to the pants. The upper portion of the strut is notched and fits right at the radiator. Put both struts on at the same time, align them and put them aside to dry. It takes a little effort to get everyone to work together but the results are convincing.
Top Wing
The outer struts need to be carefully cleaned so to reclaim the locating pins. Several times of dry fitting was required before I had the fit I was looking for. I mounted the struts on the lower wing at a 30 degree angle and let it dry for a while. The model was flipped over, struts were located in their holes, lined up with the center of the wing and the center of the fuselage and set aside to dry. When dry, the cabanes were added. One of my cabanes did not fit right as it was too short. I did not check to see if both cabanes were the same size. A little gap filling glue on the reluctant cabane, a little paint and no one will really know.
Final Assembly and Rigging
The rigging was complicated as I doubled the lines due to the fact the model was 1/48th scale. I still drilled into the struts and fuselage as with DURAS but I could not lace the rigging as I normally would have. One point: the rigging diagram on the instruction sheet is wrong. They show the four fuselage wires in the same location whereas one set should be just above the wheel struts. Check the box art or outside reference material for the exact location.
From here it's just a matter of adding the tail wheel, prop, machine guns and antennas and wires. I think it took about 20 to 25 hours to complete. I have always liked the Snow Owl color scheme and was glad to be able to build it.
Conclusion
Classic filled a gap for 1/48th builders in American between the wars aircraft. The P-6E is a nice looking kit and requires only slightly above average building skill to turn out an impressive kit. No modifications were made to the kit and I did not check any reference materials as to the exact size of the model. This short article is for the
person who wants to build the kit out of the box. I'm certain that there are places that the kit could be tweaked to make a more exact replica but I made no attempt to do that. My customer was happy with the results and that's all that counts with me.