This is the fairly ancient Revell (ex-Matchbox) 1/72 DHC-6 Twin Otter in the colorful livery of the now-defunct Manx Airlines, which operated this aircraft – leased from the UK’s Loganair – between 1983 and 1985. It operated from the Isle of Man Airport…formerly RNAS Ronaldsway, which had been home to a number of Barracuda torpedo-bomber training squadrons during the war.
Changes to the kit were relatively minor, adding seat shapes to the completely-blank cabin, reinforcing and adding brake detail to the spindly main landing gear (and a landing light to the nose gear fork), and adding aerials and windscreen-wipers to the exterior. The prop blades were also feathered to the neutral position, a characteristic feature of the ‘Twotter’ with no engine power supplied. [I keep vowing to myself to one day re-engineer the dodgy windscreen architecture…the kit’s most glaring weakness…but with the press of other ‘stuff’ going on, I decided yet again to take a pass ‘this time!’ I’ve got a few more waiting in the stash – and loads of possible schemes – so I’ll get around to it eventually!]
Paints were Tamiya acrylics. Decals were drawn up in MS-Paint and printed on my faithful and long-serving HP inkjet printer.
I did a minor stock-up on these kits a while ago, when Hobbylinc had them for around $10 a pop. The kit RCAF scheme – probably with floats – and another ‘home brew’ decal job for the NASA/Glenn Research Center are in the offing…but I’ve really got to work out a way to fix those cockpit-area contours! [bnghead]
It’s an odd color, even in the pics of the real a/c, but your ‘camo’ reference is apt. As I was pondering how to mix it…I realized I already had. It’s the lighter green from the WW1 French 4-color camouflage I used for my 1/32 SPAD XIII builds a few years back.
[And to be honest…I had to look about 3 times before I realized what you were talking about… [whstl]]
Thanks, Hutch! Hardly a masterpiece, but the scheme really grabbed me the first time I saw it. Once I found a font that approximated the Celtic lettering, the rest was pretty staightforward.
very nice work! looks like the real thing. We flew on one back in February on Winair - St Maarten to Saba and back…shortest commercial runway in the world. It was quite exciting! and we still only used half the runway during the landing rollout.
I flew on a twin otter run by a commuter airline many years ago. It was very cramped and uncomfortable, noisy and rough. Then we flew into a turbulent storm, at night. Couldn’t see a thing. That was the closest I ever came to getting airsick.
There is a skydiving school near us, and they have a twin otter, so I frequently see it overhead. Nice nostalgic memories, but I wouldn’t care to fly on one again!
A “Twotter” To see.The one plane I haven’t found for my civil fleet. That’s in Model Form of course. Very nice looking aircraft. Thanks for the views Greg!
When I was trying to work out the spacing using (smaller-scale) HO model RR seats and photographs of real cabins – to work out relative positions of seats to windows – I ended up having those seats pretty much ‘heel to toe’ to match the photos. I didn’t think much beyond that after I buttoned the fuselage up…but it sounds like I got it just about right.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single account suggesting these birds offer a comfortable ride…
