Cessna 337 Skymaster (Shin Kazama)

The finished model:

In the manga:

After Shin is discharged from Area 88, he lands in Paris and spends a few days in the city, seeing the sights. After a chance meeting with a group of Japanese tourists, the three young ladies talk Shin into joining them on a sightseeing flight. However, disaster strikes when the pilot of the Cessna 337 Skymaster has a heart-attack and it’s up to Shin to grab the stick and make an emergency landing at the airport. In the aftermath, Shin realizes, to his shame, that he misses the adrenaline high of flying in high stress, life-and-death situations. He just isn’t cut out for the peaceful life of a civilian anymore.

The kit(s):

• Cessna T337 Sky Master by Arii

The build:

Okay, so it’s not exactly one of the marquee fighter jet builds of Area 88, but I love filling in the vehicles “around the edges” in my 1/72 scale Area 88 project, so this one fit the bill. One of the few civilian planes featured in the manga, it actually planes a pretty significant role in Shin’s development as a character. It’s in the Skymaster that Shin begins to realize he’s actually addicted to thrill of flying in a high-stress environment – despite all those lonely nights back at Area 88 where all he wanted to do was leave and get back to Ryoko.

Ever since I built the Beechcraft Bonanza from The Calculus Affair, as part of my Tintin project, I’ve been itching to get my hands on this kit – and there’s still a Cessna 172 waiting in the wings.

I actually started this build using an O-2 Skymaster Airfix kit I got off eBay – which, remarkably is not actually the same tooling as the Arii kit (according to Scalemates), despite how closely they resemble one another.  However, I over-estimated how easily I’d be able to putty/sand over the observation windows in the door. It just wasn’t working for me, so I bagged up that work in progress and started fresh with the Arii kit. I will say though, when I first opened the box and saw the fuselage parts I nearly had a heart attack… until I realized there where 3. Thanks for the option Arii!

It wasn’t all that hard, but of course, with a kit this age the fit was a bit suspect. It took several rounds of putty and sanding to get the fuselage seam to disappear, and even then, not completely. Luckily most of the worst of it is in the rear propeller area, so not terribly visible from the front. From my experience with the Beechcraft Bonanza, I knew that the thick windows and windscreen wouldn’t let you see much of the interior, so I didn’t spend a ton of time detailing it. Instead, I spent my time and energy on adding some depth to the overhead air intake. Using a bit of square polystyrene plastic tubing I was able to make it look like an opening. I also added a bit of weight to the nose to keep it from being a tail sitter – which is good, because i spent a lot of time trying to straighten out and align the two tail struts and wanted to show off my handywork.

For whatever reason, it took several coats of Tamiya XF-2 White paint to cover the blemishes (despite using the white primer as well), but in the end, it’s basically… white. 😉

I did have some thought of painting on the cheat lines, but kind of lost steam and went looking through the decal spares for a willing donor. Just using the kit decals seemed like cheating, and besides, they wouldn’t have fit with the home-made decals I used for the registration numbers (based on the manga).  Color in a B&W manga is often a bit suspect, but I figured, when in Paris… why not go with the bleu, blanc et rouge, right? Iconic.

All in all I’m happy with how it turned out, but feel free to lend me your comments below:

THE TAMIYA PAINT :

• XF-1 (Black) – nose
• XF-2 (White) – main fuselage
• XF-16 (Aluminum) – wheel hubs
• XF-85 (Rubber Black) – tires