Lockheed Orion Model 9 by Classic Plane (Special Hobby)

1/72 scale
Kit No.: CPi 19
Price: $25.00
Decals: One version – Swiss Air
Comments: Re-box of Special Hobby kit, initially released in 2000; engraved panel lines, resin cockpit and wheel well inserts, vacuform canopy; aftermarket decals strongly recommended

History

The Lockheed Model 9 Orion was a single-engine passenger monoplane of mostly wood construction built in 1931 for commercial airlines. The enclosed main cabin seated six; it was the first airliner to have retractable landing gear and was faster than any military aircraft of that time. Designed by Richard A. Von Hake, it was the last wooden monoplane design produced by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, and the last one to use many identical elements from the aircraft preceding it. It incorporated all the elements of the Altair, but featured a forward top cockpit similar to the Lockheed Vega, plus the NACA cowling introduced in the Air Express.

The first Orion entered service with Bowen Air Lines at Fort Worth, Texas, in May 1931. American Airways, renamed American Airlines in 1934, operated several 9D Orions. The Orion developed a reputation for safety as an airliner, but also won headlines in the hands of skilled daredevil pilots for its speed, advanced design and reliability.  Orions purchased for airline service did not last long in that role; in 1934 the Civil Aeronautics Authority issued a ruling mandating that all planes operating on the major airline networks be twin-engine aircraft with both a pilot and a co-pilot, requiring a tw0-seat cockpit arrangement for all airliners on those routes.

The CAA ruling ended the Orion’s career as an airliner, at least in the United States. Many were subsequently used for cargo or mail carrying or sold for private use and charter. Due to its complicated wood construction, the Orion had to be sent back to Lockheed in Burbank, California whenever it needed repairs. For that reason, they were often disposed of after any type of significant accident. At least 12 of the used “Orions” were purchased for service in the Spanish Civil War and destroyed in use.  The Orion also found a foreign airline client in Swiss Air Transport Company, Swissair. In 1931, when Swissair was founded, the average speed of aircraft used in Europe was 115 mph. The Orion, powered by a Pratt & Whitney Wasp radial engine producing a top speed of 225 mph, was an attractive acquisition, and Swissair began operating the type on at least one route starting in 1932.

Although designed with the passenger market in mind, the Orion’s speed made it a natural for air races. The first Bendix race of 1931 had a showing of two Orions, three Altairs and one Vega in a race that had only nine aircraft competing. On July 11, 1935, Laura H. Ingalls flew a Lockheed Orion powered by a Pratt & Whitney Wasp engine from Floyd Bennett Field to Burbank, California, establishing an East-West record for women. Two months later she flew it back to set a West-East record.  In 1935 a single Model 9 Orion was modified by Lockheed as a news camera plane for the Detroit News. To work in the role, a pod was built into the frontal leading edge of right wing about 8 feet out from the fuselage. This pod had a glass dome on the front and mounted a camera. To aim the camera the pilot was provided with a primitive grid-like gun sight on his windshield.

A modified Orion Model 9E has the distinction of being the plane in which pilot Wiley Post and his friend Will Rogers died in a crash in Alaska. Post had earlier asked Lockheed engineers to add pontoons to the plane, but they refused, telling him that pontoons would upset its aerodynamics to an unsafe degree. Post nonetheless had pontoons placed on the plane himself and flew Rogers up to Alaska. On August 15, 1935 the fears of the Lockheed engineers were realized when the plane stalled while taking off from a lake near Point Barrow. Post and Rogers died in the crash, sending the nation into mourning for two of its most popular cultural heroes.

The Kit

This kit is a re-box of the Special Hobby kit of the Lockheed Orion originally released in 2000. It includes precisely the same resin detail parts, although it does have a new set of decals for Swiss Air airlines. The key difference, other than the decals, is that the Classic Plane version has an option for a three-bladed propeller, while the Special Hobby kit had a two-bladed propeller only.  The kit consists of 39 injection molded plastic parts, including eight clear plastic parts for the cabin windows, plus 23 resin parts for the cockpit, engine, and wheel wells, along with a vacuform canopy.

The instructions are quite clear throughout with the exception of the landing gear assembly (Step 6), at which point they become a bit Byzantine. In particular, the kit would benefit from a graphic, telling modelers the angle at which the main gear should be positioned in relation to the wing when deployed. Also it is not clear how the support struts for the main gear are to be positioned.  [Right: The vacuform canopy is fixed with Elmer’s Glue in preparation for airbrushing.  Note the extensive puttying and sanding required to fill the gap around the entire area of the wing root – one point at which the fit of the kit was poor. Blue Tack was later fitted to the open nose to protect the cockpit.]

Construction

The kit’s radial engine is entirely in resin, with a central block into which eight individual piston heads are cemented. All the piston heads will require some sanding before they will fit properly inside the holes in the central block. This stage cannot be fudged because the cowling, two injection-molded halves of plastic, must fit around the engine once the latter is assembled. Some sanding of the outermost part of the cylinder heads may also be needed — regardless, getting the cowling on will mean a tight fit that may not require cement at all.

The cockpit consists entirely of resin also, and makes for an entertaining build. It was very satisfying until I dropped the main instrument panel onto the carpet, since that was the last I saw of it. I’m convinced there is a wormhole to another dimension down there that opens up whenever I drop such small parts…After searching for an hour, I gave up and cannabilized an instrument panel from a very similar plane, MPM’s 1/72 scale Lockheed Vega which has also been sitting in my stash for a few years. It looked much the same as the original and with a little sanding fit almost like a glove.  The fuselage fit together almost perfectly but the bulk of the resin cockpit meant that it didn’t quite close up seamlessly. A small amount of putty and sanding solved the problem. The wings were another story.

The upper and lower wing parts fit together very well despite the bulk of the resin wheel inserts, which had to be sanded down in places to ensure a good fit. But fitting the wing to the fuselage revealed a visible gap between them that required four separate applications of putty and sanding to cure. The small vacuform canopy was fiddly in the extreme.  Masking it with Tamiya tape and Humbrol Maskol was a slow, painstaking process, but it paid off. Once dry, after clean-up with a sharpened toothpick, I gave it a dip in Future and set it aside. The last bits were the resin cowling exhausts, whose configuration is nothing like that depicted on the box art, the pitot tube, and the tail wheel.

Painting

For the cockpit interior I wanted a pale blue-grey, so I used a new Tamiya lacquer paint, Dark Ghost Gray LP-36. Ideally you should use Tamiya Lacquer Thinner with this line, but Tamiya Acrylic Thinner will do in a pinch. I started with the lower wing when it came time to airbrush the airframe, as I was not sure what shade of red I wanted. I began with Tamiya Gloss Red but found it to be too bright.  After a lot of experimentation, I settled on a mix of Vallejo acrylics to get just the right shade of dark red: Ferrari Red 71.085, and NATO Black 71.251, at a ratio of about 9:1, respectively. A small amount of Black darkened the Ferrari Red rather quickly. The result was a satisfying deep maroon color that was not quite burgundy and was of such a quality that it looked more like an enamel once dry.

Markings

Three words: Use aftermarket decals. The kit markings are of poor quality, being disappointingly translucent and prone to silvering. The cowling markings in particular did not lie down well, even with repeated applications of decal solvent, and left me wishing I’d painted the Swiss Air flash onto the cowling and fuselage myself. If you should get your hands on the Classic Plane version of this kit with the Swiss Air markings, I strongly recommend aftermarket decals as an alternative, if you can find appropriate markings for this plane.

Conclusion

This is not what I’d call a weekend project – limited run kits rarely are — but it was a very enjoyable build. Highly recommended if you are looking for something from the Golden Age that’s a litte off the beaten track.

References

www.fiddlersgreen.net