1/72 Academy PBY 5A Black Cat

by Dietmar Carstensen

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This "Black Cat" has been built almost straight from the box. I have added only the two little antennas on top of the wing, the ladder, the little bollard below the bow turret, the antenna wires, hydraulic break wires to the rear landing gear and windscreen-wipers. I painted the struts on the underside of the dome-shaped rear canopies as these struts on the canopies delivered with the box are totally missing. As the black underground was shining through the white parts of the decals (nationality emblems) I have sprayed these with the airbrush.

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The panel lines were highlighted with 100% flat black by using the airbrush. Little work was done by pastel chalk.

The whole aircraft was painted with a coat of 50% flat black and 50% red brown. This looks in most circumstances black and allows me to highlight the black exhaust stains (according to a photo of the real aircraft) and to darken the panel lines.

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The Academy-kit fits very well and in my opinion the cockpit is detailled well enough as you can see the details hardly after the canopy has been fitted. Photos made by using the Fuji Finepix S5000 at daylight, without using photoshop.

Dietmar

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Photos and text © by Dietmar Carstensen