Broplan 1/72 Savoia Marchetti SM.74

BROPLAN 1:72 SAVOIA MARCHETTI SM.74

Reviewer: Chris Busbridge (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 4 May 2002

Manufacturer: Broplan Aircraft: Savoia Marchetti SM.74 Scale: 1/72 Medium: Vacuform main components and glazing, with injection moulded detail parts. Decals: None supplied Pros: Excellent fit on most parts. Cons: Crude injection moulded parts with heavy flash. Seperate rear fuselage section

Aircraft:
I could find very little information about this aircraft. It had seating for 25 and was the first four-engined aircraft to enter service with the "Ala Littoria" airline. Only three were built and they were all commandeered by the Regia Aeronautica for transport use (it was thought to have had more load carrying capability than the purpose built SM.82). They were used very actively in Libya until they were all destroyed, one of them after a collision with a CANT Z.1007 and another damaged beyond repair during a bombing raid.

The Kit:
I remember reading a SAMI article about this kit about a year ago and at the time it intrigued me. It has taken all this time to get over the fear of vacuform modelling and have a go. Broplan (and Airmodel) are the specialists in this field and together they are the only source for certain Italian aircraft. This particular kit is neatly packaged into a surprisingly small box for such a large model. Unfortunately, the rear section of the fuselage is moulded separately, which is probably due to the size of Broplans machinery, rather than an attempt to get the model to fit in the box!

After reading a few articles & on-line guides about vacuform modelling, I decided to practise first on another cheaper kit just to get the hang of it. Although there is more than one technique, depending on which article you read, I ended up drawing around each part with a sharp pencil and then scoring with a new blade several times, holding the knife at an angle of 45 degrees or so, until I could snap the part out of the material. I carefully removed any excess, using a knife and a sanding block, going right up to the pencil line before finishing off by sanding the whole part over a flat level surface. The inner surfaces of each wing was scraped with a blade along the trailing edges to get as thin an edge as possible. After all the parts were separated it's just like normal modelling, except that some parts may be quite thin and need extra reinforcement with plasti-card.

Construction:
FuselageThe injection moulded parts for the cockpit detail is rather crude and the one piece passenger side windows are tricky to apply. I followed the instructions and installed them as a single piece, rather than trying cut out each window individually. This would have taken forever and would require extreme accuracy. It did compromise the structural strength of the fuselage to some degree, but the formers helped. The interior colour is anybody's guess, but one clue was a comment I read which suggested that fabric covered aircraft were likely to have had a light grey interior. This is indeed the case for another Savoia, the S.79 Sparviero, which had a similar construction method.

The wing spar is another useful feature that not only ensures correct dihedral, but also adds more strength. I glued strips along the edge of one of the fuselage halves, to aid alignment and fit, before gluing them together. In order to keep the moulded ribbed fabric effect across the join between the main & rear fuselage, careful filling and sanding was necessary.

Wings Despite their size, the wings halves fitted together very well. The wing to fuselage join was also very good and only a touch of filler was needed here. A few passes with the scriber along the aileron and flap hinge lines were necessary to improve definition. There were a few imperfections on the surface of each wing, but careful sanding and filling cured this.

Tail Planes The horizontal tail section needed filler at the fuselage join. I separated the elevators so that they could be posed. This had the added bonus of resolving the rather soft hinge line detail. I needed to trim the base of the fin and rudder in order to get a proper "sit" on the fuselage.

Engine Fairing/Cowling Tools This is the most time consuming part of the construction. Each wing fairing is moulded in two halves and included the engine cowls. I disliked this, as I felt they should have been separate. A much more realistic effect was achieved by removing the cowls and making new ones out of thin plasticard, which were glued to the cleaned up injection moulded front sections. The fairings, now minus the cowls, were glued in place on each wing and circles of plasticard glued on the front, onto which the engines were mounted. I replaced the rather crude kit parts with "Engine & Things" versions, which weren't a great deal better, I must admit, but at least they had the characteristic Piaggio "V" push-rod arrangement. They were painted black and dry brushed with aluminium to pick out any detail. When dry, the revised cowlings were placed over them, thus leaving a clear space around the back, which is just what I'd hoped for. There are no parts or diagrams to show how the exhaust itself works, but I saw an R.Caruana colour profile where they poked out the top of each cowling at a shallow angle. They are difficult to make out in the one photo I have seen of this aircraft (incidentally, the box art is based on this same photo), but an on-line forum enquiry confirmed R. Caruanas description. Another interesting feature of the engine/cowling assembly is that they all point downwards slightly when viewed from the side.

Undercarriage Broplans decision to mould the wheels integrally with the spats didn't really work for me, but a few passes with a scriber gave some semblance of separation between the two. The injection moulded struts need some cleaning up and were nice and strong once glued in place. There were a just a few sink holes at the top of each main strut that needed to be filled.

Cockpit Canopy This time I did not follow the kit instructions for the cockpit canopy. The vacuform moulding for this part was thin, lumpy and because of its large size, very weak. I cut each window out separately from the fuselage, replacing any broken framework with strips of plasticard and then cut pieces of clear sheet to fit. Time consuming for sure, but worth the effort.

Camouflage & Markings:
The only b/w photo I've seen of this 604 Squadriglia aircraft appears to show a dark camouflage base colour with lighter spidery/star shaped mottles over the top. This contradicts the kit instructions, which suggests a light sand based camouflage with regular green and brown patches. There are no decals with this kit, so a rummage around the spares box will be necessary. As markings are in the standard RA format, it should be easy to find the ones you need (apart from the ID codes). The white fuselage band and rudder cross are easily airbrushed. An alternative is to use the Alitricolori decal sheet 72119 to model the original "Ala Littoria" civilian version of this aircraft, which had an aluminium dope overall finish, IIRC.

Conclusions:
A very interesting model of a very interesting aircraft. Highly recommended for experienced vacuform modellers. You will need plenty of shelf space as it's quite a large model. For anyone who has not tried this kind of modelling, I recommend a smaller scale project to start with, although this kit was not as difficult as I originally feared.

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