Here’s an old, poor quality vid cap of the Hobbycraft C-7 Caribou I done back in 1998.
I modified it from a C-7A, into YAC-1 #73080 by adding the three piece main gear doors, and removing the Strakes. Sorry for the picture quality, I sold it not long after finishing the build, and never made any more pictures.
Take care,
Frank
not bad Frank! the background you chose is horrid though!![:P][;)] you bes to hope Dwight don’t see this one bubba!! He’ll have you holdin’ up all kinds of stuff with his choppin’ capabilities. so, tell me the story about how you sold it, how much and to whom? (if its any of my buisiness). later.
Nice Caribou, Hook. I guess I’m just morbid, but it made me think of that amazing (and tragic) photograph of a Caribou flying in the approach pattern, just as it has been caught in midair by friendly outgoing artillary. The tail and rear section has just left the airplane, and you know the crew has just realized their fates. It’s a disturbing picture.
nice model, makes me think about getting one. what scale is it?
Thanks fella’s,
Chris… That background is horrid for sure, I’ve seen some of Dwight’s handiwork and shudder at what he’ll have me holding!!! [:o]
One of my non-modeling Veteran friends from Colorado stopped in for a visit while on vacation, he saw it, and offered remuneration for my troubles if I’d let him take it home for his collection, so now it resides in Rocky Ford! [:)]
Shark… Yes, I’m familiar with the picture you describe… a very tragic and sobering image indeed! For those who may not have seen it, here it is:
t34… Thanks, it’s 1/72 scale… kind of a disappointment because the interior is totally void of any detail… I fixed the cockpit up though, including the Crew Chief standing in the companion way, as they normally would do.
Thanks again guys,
Frank
nice build Frank
Thad
Man That is a horrible thing to happen to them.
Nice build, from what can be seen
Regards, Rick
Frank, I may have missed this above, but is this the old Hobbycraft Canada Caribou? It’s one of the few transports I’d like to do (others are Italeri C-119, which I’ve found hard to locate, and a C-123 and C-124, which don’t exist, at least not injection molded. There was a time you could say they never would, but with Trumpeter and some of the other new firms around, there’s just no telling what will get kitted. I still want that conversion to turn the Monogram B-36 into the one and only C-99 (which, derilict as it is, thank the Lord still lives among us).
Last C-7 Caribou I saw had recently been abandoned by CIA contractors at a jungle base in Honduras (Palmerola). There it sat, a hot potato in SEA camouflage, which neither the Hondurans nor the Americans would claim as their own. It had a matesitting next to it, as I’ve posted here before, a C-123 in the same scheme, both with no tail nos., no national insig., of course. Their other brother, a C-47, was shot down and, to the dismay of the Reagan administration, one kicker named Eugene Hassenfuss survived, and that kicker kicked off the whole Iran/Contra scandal. I’ve always wondered what happened to the surviving birds. There were a few others that disappeared into the CIA inventory.
(BTW, the negs and contact sheets of my photos of those planes reside in the Houston Chronicle archive, open to the public, so I can always prove they were there if history ever requires it. So does my article on the base, which mentions the two planes. Byline search: T.E. Bell AND Palmerola, 1987. It’s a tragic, fascinating and, unfortunately, already forgotten chapter in our history.)
Thanks Thad,
Jeff - (congratulations on your 4th star by the way!).
Rick… I know, I wish I would have made better pictures of it!
Shark, Yes, that was the Hobbycraft Canada Caribou. Very interesting story of the Bou & Provider being abandoned in the jungle… (speaking of “Provider”, I have seen an injection molded C-123 in 1/144 scale, found a picture of the bagged kit laying beside it’s box on some website a couple days ago. No kidding, it’s for real… going to look for it again now that you brought it up! [;)]
Take care,
Frank
UPDATE:
Sharkskin, here is the URL to the 1/144 C-123… it’s a future release ('04}, but as far as I can tell, it’s the only fish in the water right now, so I’m going to keep my eyes on it! This company has a bunch of other cool resin kits for sale also! [;)]
http://www.airalex.homestead.com/C123.html
Take care,
Frank
I wonder if it’s an old Aurora kit. You know, while Vietnam was going on, for those of us old enough to remember, they kitted virtually everything that flew there. Sold models of Thuds and AC-47s with the SEA camo painted on already, sold Skyraiders (AMT, I think it was. I built it when I was about 11) and others all shot up with battle damage. All you had to do was paint the hole and stringers sticking out. So it wouldn’t surprise me if there wasn’t an old C-123 somewhere in somebody’s vault.
BTW, I made it sound like I saw those planes at a mysterious dirt airstrip in the jungle. It may have been in the Central American boonies, but the tarmac at Palmerola is all paved and 8,800 ft. long and I got in and out of there on a U.S. C-130. Where, Oldhooker, we promptly and happily jumped aboard a CH-47 every day so the army (yeah, sure he was in the “Army”) PIO could tell us, “See, there’s no special forces troops down there. You’d see them if they were.” Uh-huh.
But it was the U.S. battalion commander in charge of the grunts at the base who told me how the Caribou and Provider came to be there, and how nobody would claim them.
Found the other one (in 1/72 scale no less)… a company called “Mach 2” out of France…
Here’s Mach 2’s article about it…
http://www.mach2.fr/provideg.htm
** I see a C-123 in my future **
[:)]
Frank
You devil. I would never have guessed Mach 2, but is it going to cost a gazillion francs? I’ve never built one of their kits, but they pick very interesting subjects. If you get it, sure will be nice to see some in progress photos. And I believe I see the add-on jet engines on those sprues, too. They look good on a Provider.
This may or may not interest those who don’t know it, but the jet engines that were put on the C-123, the P2V Neptune, B-50, C-117 and others ran off the same aviation gasoline, from the same tanks, as the radial engines that drove the props. They did not carry a separate supply of JP-4 or JP-5 jet fuel, or, more poetically, kerosene.
I don’t know about the cost, but when I get a reply from them, I’ll be sure to let you know.
Me neither, but thanks to the nature of the forum, they’ll be people who’ll have experience with Mach2.
If I get it, I will post an article on it’s construction.
Yes, those jets made it special! I remember them going in and out of Pope AFB, and particularly how loud those engines were when they took off!
So the jets used the same fuel supply as the radials, aye? That IS interesting indeed!
Your account of the two aircraft left abandoned, reminds me of an event that occurred near Axton, Virginia back in 1979, when an old Grumman S-2 Tracker landed on this long, straight, back road and taxied into the edge of a big field. A farmer called the police, but when they all came together at the airplane, no one was there and it was locked. As best they could see, there was no cargo inside, but a drug dog alerted to it, so the SBI posted agents in the treeline to await the operators return.
Five days they waited, and no one came. When the relief agent came on shift early on the sixth morning, the old Tracker was gone and the agent on duty was sitting by a tree smoking a cigarette. He maintained he saw nothing, up until the time he resigned. The local farmer swears he didn’t hear an airplane take-off on the road, but neighbors farther down the road said they were awakened around 4am by what they thought was a plane getting ready to crash. (flying low over the trees).
Everyone figured whoever belonged to the S-2, had a little talk with the agent and the farmer who lived in the house visible to the road before he/she/it left. I never heard any more about it after that, but I have a feeling the S-2 pilot was in it for keeps!
Okay Tom, you take care now; been nice talking with you this evening.
Frank
I just saw that A Model has not one but two 1/144 C-123 kits coming soon , & here I was waiting for the SA-16B to be the next kit from them after buying thier SA-16A Albatross,
Cheers,
Wow such intrigue! that’s some crazy stuff, conspiracies and the like. I enjoyed reading it!