I had intended to build this plane with floats and pop it onto an Alaskan lake diorama, but then I came across a snippet saying the Australian Government's Antarctic Division had bought five of these DHC2 Beavers in the 1950s, and so I changed my mind, built it with skis attached and painted it bright orange, just like my other Antarctic plane, the Auster.
A De Havilland Canada DHC2 Beaver, yet another STOL specialist. The kit is a nice (if old) one in 1/72 scale, by Airfix. Almost everything fitted nicely together without much fuss. In just a few spots holes that should to accept things like the little foot-rungs for passengers to enter the plane were not there, but the mouldings in the fuselage showed where to drill the holes, so that was no problem at all to fix.
Sadly, the five Antarctic Beavers, while providing good service from 1955-1964 in sometimes horrendous conditions, were not deemed a success, and were replaced with helicopters and other aircraft. Two Beavers were destroyed on the ground during one ferocious blizzard at Mawson base, and another one was damaged beyond repair a year later.
This model isn't strictly accurate. It's actually for a US Army version of the Beaver, and it was only just before I started building it that I discovered the Australian Antarctic connection, so I forged ahead regardless. And, fortunately, I am not bothered in the least by concerns about nitpicking accuracy. The four windows inset into the cabin roof, for example, aren't correct, but I decided not to fill them in. I left the windows there to toss the nitpickers a bone to chew on! However, I am rather pleased with my home-made decals, especially the ones with white bits.
I think I like planes with skis as much as I like planes with floats. And I do really like STOL planes the most.
Finally, here's my Beaver with my Auster. In 1955 both planes served at the same time in Antarctica, so this is almost historically realistic. However the dogsled team is from my Ford Trimotor kit, and I only included it because I love my dogsled team! The diorama base is the same one I have used for all three of my Antarctic planes (the Ford Trimotor, the Auster and the Beaver). I am seriously running out of space inside my study for displaying models, so I now have my Antarctic ice sheet set up with like this, with the Beaver and the Auster and the doggies.