Cessna 0-2a Skymaster

[Mike]

Cessna 0-2a Skymaster

1:48 Testors

Testors have re-released some of their older 1:48 kits lately, and as they're not always easy to get in the UK in my experience, I thought I'd flag up that HLJ seem to have a stock at present, amongst them being the Bronco that has been quite rare of late, and the Cessna 0-2A Skymaster, that I used to refer to as an O-2 Bird-dog after building the diminutive 1:72 kit from Airfix in my youth.

Clearly, it's a product of a different era, and as such the tooling is made the old fashioned way from physical rather than digital masters, so tooling is not going to be as crisp as a modern kit, but then who is going to produce a kit of this unusual and funky looking aircraft in a hurry? I rest my case.

The box is the first aspect of the kit that is old Skool, showing the finished model on the front and proudly announcing that it's a skill level 2 that is "more challenging" and requires glue. All good info so far. Opening the box you find three grey sprues trussed up in a polythene bag, plus one of clear parts that are admirably thin, but not all that clear. I'm sure that'll improve somewhat with a dip in Klear/Future, but you'll need to be careful removing them from the sprue, as they look very delicate.

The main moulding is a curious mis-match of raised and recessed detail, with the stubby fuselage having heavily engraved panel lines, while the wings and booms have raised panel lines. The whole airframe is covered in raised rivets, which is at least correct for the fuselage, but a little over-stated on the wings themselves. In fact, a rather tatty rippled upper surface seems to be present on some airframes, which could be fun portraying. If you decide to stay with the rivets, any lost in the build can easily be replaced with some Archer 3D transfers of an appropriate size.

The cockpit is typical of the period, consisting of 4 boxes onto which you attach the rather car-like seats, and a decal only instrument panel. The rudder pedals are triangular bumps, but two control yolks finish off the detail. Quite a lot of work would be needed to bring the cockpit up to scratch. The instructions show a 1/2 oz nose-weight that needs adding to stop the airframe from tail-sitting, and if you read the copious build notes, you'll also need to decide whether to cut out the windows for the lower fuselage and door on the pilot's side, or go with the provided black decals. Deciding later in the build will leave you in a world of pain, and probably end up with a blizzard of styrene dust inside your cockpit, so beware. You are advised to use the decals as templates, and then add the extra glazing panels from the clear sprue. Although the decal options don't show it, this odd arrangement allows the builder to portray an O-2B if they should wish, just by leaving off the extra window decals (as far as I know).

Your only other option is whether to go Navy and have props with spinners installed, or airforce that are without, which brings us neatly onto your decal choices. Scale Master printed the decals, and they are rather nice looking, being very finely printed and crisp. The provided stencil data is easily read, and everything seems to be in register, although my eyes detect a slight inequality in the red/white stripes of the bars either side of the stars. Your choices of subject out of the box are as follows:

• USAF O-2a FAC Bien Hoa AB, South Vietnam 1969
  
• USN O-2a VFA-125 Rough Raiders, NAS Fallon, Las Vegas, Nevada 1989
  

The former is in the more sedate FS16473 Aircraft Grey with black anti-glare panel and white uppers on the wings, while the latter is in Ford Engine Light Blue (which may be problematic to source), with white upper wings, yellow ID bands and a chrome spinner. You'll certainly need plenty of masking tape for the 2nd option.

Conclusion

Whilst the part count is low and the sprue gates narrow for the time, the fit of the parts could well be tricky due to the age of the moulding, so careful test-fitting will be the order of the day. There appears to be a slightly odd curve to the front framing of the cockpit, but that might be fixed by some careful masking, so check your references. Some parts will need finessing if you are going for realism, and I suspect some of you will want to tone down the rivets, particularly on the wings.

All that said, it is the only mainstream model of this aircraft, and it is once more available for a limited time (I have no details of the length of the production run at this time). It reminds me of the Airfix Dog Fight double I made all those years ago, and the quirky push/pull prop design appeals immensely to my sense of fun. if like me you've always wanted one, you know where to find one now.

Review sample courtesy of

[corporate]

Thanks for this interesting review. You recently offered some useful comments on another FAC aircraft kit also from Testors, the OV-10A, with helpful info on sourcing the essential improvement set from Paragon Designs. Ian at Paragon was helpful and prompt, and I got the set from him - having sourced a Bronco kit via Ebay from the USA at reasonable cost....

But I suppose I ought first to tackle the O-2A: I have two of these, one boxing each from Testors and Italeri, the same kit of course though molded in different coloured plastic. in other respects they seem identical. I find it curious (though welcome) that this kit should be re-released, very much a minority appeal item and as you say, rather dated & inadequate in some respects, But it's the only game in town... The clear components in both my kits are not as good as you seem to find in the test sample from HLJ: mine are thick and somewhat crude. I found one review on the Net by a US modeller who vac-formed his own clear parts, bit advanced/challenging for me! But I will cut out the panels and use those RH fuselage clear pieces for accuracy: there's a build review on ARC by the diligent Darius Aibara in which he mentions using the decals as templates. I got the second kit with this in mind, fearful of screwing it up first time round... Darius was very kind in providing me with some spare 1/48 smallarms including an M-16 so I can clip one into the LH fuselage interior (these scale weapons come from a French manufacturer); and I have some aluminium foil set aside, rolled onto fine metallic gauze, for the quilted sound insulation found in the real FAC planes - lotsa photos! The cabin contained a jumble of electronics, comms stuff and so on, needs plenty of scratchbuilding.

I look forward to reading your build review of the O-2A - I need all the help I can get!

Regards, Tony

[AnonymousFO98]

I love this aircraft and wish Airfix would repop their 1/72

Not really tempted at £25 inc postage to order this kit

Thanks for the review Mike is always nice to see this push me pull you

Will you be doing a build please?

[TonyT]

Isn't it missing a couple of windows? the ones just below the windscreen? cool looking aircraft but could be a pig in real life.