"First Flight"

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JohnRatzenberger
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"First Flight"

Post by JohnRatzenberger »

This is N62209, a Cessna 172P, which I bounced around the airways and runways until my instructor and the FAA examiner decided I was reasonably competent to fly on my own, or they simply gave up for their own safety.

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I then rented this for subsequent flying until the air service sold out and took N62209 to Greenville. Other than it was my solo aircraft and my certification aircraft, I can't say I missed it when gone -- although "new" and had lots of power, it just didn't fly well and as neither did I, we were always at odds. After N62209 went away, I ended up renting an older 172M, N76543 -- less power, more than slightly ragged, temperamental to start, radios half working, visor constantly falling in front eyes on landing, flaps that needed constant attention while cycling -- and loved it. Must have been the mutual attraction of two old & somewhat broken down entities, whatever, but while I continued to fly, '543' and I had a great time together.

Anyway, it's always been a goal to model '209' and display it sitting on my log book. I took lots of detail photos but I'm not going to get nuts about detailing it. Anyway, along the way I collected two kits.

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I am going to build the Minicraft kit, the one on the bottom. The Modelcraft kit has a much more detailed interior, but overly prominent raised rivets and overly deep/wide panel lines -- yes, the 172 has raised rivets, but not that much so. I may borrow a few detail parts from the Modelcraft kit to spice up the interior of the Minicraft kit, but unless I get inventive, the interior side detail will be lacking.

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Sprue shot -- there are two other smaller one, one with wheels and such, the other with glass.

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On the left are the kit decals, which will not be used. On the right is a generic set of Cessna style slant codes by Draw Decals. I get credit for persuading Greg Drawbaugh to make this sheet. If you do civil aircraft, and need decals, you should check them out: http://www.drawdecal.com/;

OK, what have I done to myself ? Well, the masking will be fun, obviously. I do not know the Cessna colors and am only going to approximate them with a white, grey, and blue, but I am not going to make a huge effort at mixing. I think if I can get a decent "off-white", not a bright white, then everything else will look OK. Probably the only modification to the kit will be to leave the wheel pants off. I'm going to leave the engine out and load the nose with weight.

I have several GB kits on the bench and a 4-day trip next weekend, so do not expect a lot of early progress .... but I will try something.
John Ratzenberger :???:
It's my model and I'll do what I want with it.
MerlinJones

Re: "First Flight"

Post by MerlinJones »

Nice one, John.
...And that's another subject of my current To Do List. ;-)

Regards,
Bruce
ShaunW
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Re: "First Flight"

Post by ShaunW »

Very nice and great story behind the build. I'll be interested to see how this compares with the Minicraft Bonanza that I'm building.
Doing - Tamiya 1/35th Universal Carrier.

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