Douglas PD-1

by Bernhard Schrock

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Here is my 1/72 scale Douglas PD-1. As an enthusiastic fan of U.S.Naval aviation, I found it very sad never to see a completed model of this early flying-boat. I therefore decided to build my own PD-1 from the RarePlane vacform kit.

The kit is typical of RarePlane's vaccuum-formed offerings, with fine surfacedetails and white-metal parts for motors and propellers.

All the braces are sourced from Contrail and must be cut to the appropriate length according to the very good drawings supplied with the kit instructions. All other details must be prepared scratch on the basis of the aforementioned drawing.

The most difficult aspect of the kit is the construction of the fuselage. The vacform plastic is very thin at the cross-section and must be reinforced with sheet and super-glue along the full length.

The cockpit details are impromptu, since I did not have access to original pictures. The PD-1 is a very rare flying boat and I only found a handful of photos in all of my reference books.

The propellers were not bad in the kit, but I found the blades a bit too thick. I therefore replaced the propeller blades and the radiator slats with the items from Italeri's 1/72 scale BR.20.

The bracing was cut from Stainless-Steel wire with a diameter of 0,3 mm.

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Text, Images and Model Copyright © 2001 by Bernhard Schrock
Page Created 24 December, 2001
Last Updated 04 June, 2007

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