Some years ago, Vintage Wings of Canada did a wonderfully-conceived---and beautifully-illustrated---April Fool's Day piece on their website, celebrating (with tongue firmly in cheek) the Canadian Air Force's new 'Icons of Canadian Culture' Tail-Art project. This project was said to feature, not the usual range of boring tributes to respected political figures, humanitarians and innovators in the Arts and Sciences---in capital letters---but to the even-more admired and revered scions of the more 'high-profile' aspects of the nation's wide-ranging and über-influential cultural heritage. Think a little more 'lowbrow': sports...television...and popular music.
As a life-long admirer of most things Canadian---and an enthusiastic consumer of much of that 'popular culture,' ranging from Molson (and Tim Hortons)...to SCTV (and Corner Gas)...'Hockey Night" (and much of the National Hockey League)...and what occasionally seems like about 3/4 of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, to boot---the piece was a good-natured hoot from beginning to end. It was also a highly-inspiring map of possible projects for the ambitious modeler, with a host of great photos of CAF aircraft in unique 'tribute' schemes, along with informative (leg-pulling) captions describing the details of the units and machines depicted.
That still-accessible April Fool's Day masterpiece is here
I've got a whole list of 'someday' projects from the piece...including the hard-rocking Geddy Lee CF-18 and the 'Count Floyd' Twin Otter...but I thought I'd finally get the great-white-northern-ball rolling with the CH-124 Seaking in the markings celebrating the toque-wearing Bob and Doug McKenzie of SCTV fame. The kit is the beloved Sweet 1/144 offering:
The decals...received in a mysterious unmarked envelope bearing the postmark 'Melonville'....
And the results:
The Sweet kit is tiny and fairly simple, a 'snap-together' offering meant originally for the popular 1/144 pre-decorated toy market in Japan, which Sweet licensed as kits for their various sheets of suberb (Cartograf-printed) decals. Despite that simplicity, it is really a treat, with mostly-excellent fit and fine detail, and several options that make it an excellent base for nearly any of the dizzying variety of Seaking configurations in service (at least at one time) throughout the world. For those who haven't seen the kit, check Sweet's website: the decal sheets alone are worth the price of the kits, offering some really appealing (and unusual) options for a wide range of birds of various military and civil services.
My build began as any Seaking build with any kit begins: figuring out what to leave and what to add. The Sweet kit is basic to start with...but I did have to remove a few lumps and bumps to approximate the largely-uncluttered fuselage form of the Canadian CH-124s. (It's also a good idea to at least 'round off' some of the square-corner molding of the tail boom and flying surfaces.) The kit did supply both the 'thimble' radar and the correct FOD guard for the intakes as optional parts. (It also included a pre-attached rescue hoist, in the form of a vinyl blob, which I did away with, preferring to replace it with something a bit more delicate.)
In addition to the hoist, I scratchbuilt a basic cockpit interior, and then the features common to the Canadian flavor of the bird: the sonobuoy chute arrays and assorted antennae for the underside; fuselage bits, including unoccupied ECM mounts and the distinctive CPI or crash position indicator (the 'red button' on the stbd. tail); and the equaly-distinctive FLIR mount on the nose. The tail-boom strake---common to so many Seaking configurations world-wide---is the seemingly-odd omission from the kit; but it was easily fitted out from a bit of styrene strip. The main rotor blades are probably the weakest part of the kit, being thick, 'segmented' along their entire length, and not very straight, ; I cut the blades away from the arms and replaced them with thinner (and easier to 'droop') ones made from more styrene strip. Last were the mounts for the 'clothesline' aerial strung along the port side, the aerial itself from my thinnest-gauge invisible nylon thread.
[A final note for those wishing to make their own decals for these projects: a quick 'toddle' around the Internet seems to show that the exact images used by the article's original creators to 'decorate' their aircraft are still as relatively easy to find as they were when the article's photos were mashed up. I haven't checked every single one...but I was able to find a handful quickly and with very little extensive searching required.]
Happy April Fool's Day, a little early!