Cessna 172 Skyhawk
While I've spent about 99% of my time in military planes, I have flown a Cessna 172 twice. Once during pilot training (against the rules, but we didn't care) and once as a gift from my wife on Father's Day. That was a great gift by the way. Thanks babe.
I had to get this model off eBay. Not many people male models of planes that aren't considered 'cool' and this one isn't cool. It was pretty cheap and actually pretty simple to build. I wasn't to impressed with the quality of the model though. There were a few random holes that needed to be filled, which was easy enough, but I didn't understand why the holes were in there.
When I started building the model it went easy. I made the cabin, and even weathered the floors some. It would have looked great if you could see though the windscreen, but the clear plastic is too thick and it distorts what you can see. The windows also didn't quite fit the holes they were made for, so I had to tweak them.
Other than that, construction was pretty straight forward. The only major downside to this model is the flimsy landing gear and the fact that it is VERY tail heavy. I'm not convinced the stand would hold it if you don't put some weight in the nose. I tried to weigh the nose down to get it to sit on the gear, but I didn't add enough. There isn't much room so I don't think I could have made it work anyway.
Painting and Decals
Painting it was simple. All white. Well, there are the details like the tires and struts, but a couple passes with some white paint and it was painted. It was simple and I like simple.
Decals were another issue. The model was obviously a repackaged Japanese kit. The instructions were in 90% Japanese, and the instructions had bad translations. They didn't even make a decent decal placement guide. I was able to figure it out, but you could tell that exporting this kit to English speaking countries was an afterthought.
My other problem was the shape of the decals. They were designed to wrap around the plane and make continous paint strips, but it didn't work so well. There was major overlap and you could see they didn't mesh up well. I was able to trim them to work, but it was tricky.
The decals were also old. Very old. Some of them were wrinkled and I wasn't able to remove all of it. A couple of them broke while I was trying to apply them. If they were new they would have held up fine, but they broke on the wrinkles. I got them together on the plane, but I need to get an overcoat for repairing old decals.
Overall though, this was a fun quick build. This model is a part of the "I've flown this plane" collection, and the glossy finish on it really contrasts with the flat non-glossy models near it. It's also the smallest airplane model I have. Well worth the time I put into it.