Fuerza
Aérea Mexicana
Finally,
I accomplished my goal to build my first aircraft of the Mexican Air Force. That
could be a shame for me to do it until now, but I tried to get enough experience
to make a good job and honor the military of my own homeland.
The
PC-7 is a development of the piston-engined PC-3, made by the Swiss company
Pilatus
in the 1970's. This turbo-prop trainer has been a commercial success and it is
still currently in service with many other air forces around the world.
Mexico
became its largest user, with more than 80 aircraft acquired and received since
1978. While few of them maintained its original unarmed trainer status, others
were modified by adding underwing pylons that allowed them to carry gun pods and
rocket launchers. In January 1994, some PC-7 units from the 203rd and 207th
Squadrons were transferred to
Chiapas
to provide air support to the Mexican Army fighting the "Zapatista"
revolt. This caused a problem between the Mexican and Swiss governments which
prevented further sales of PC-7s to Mexico.
Click on
images below to see larger images
THE
KIT
As
a short run kit, it consists of very few injected plastic pieces, with landing
gear, spinner, propeller and main control panels made of metal. It includes a
small but attractive decal sheet to build exotic versions from Bolivia,
Myanmar
and
Switzerland. The clear glass is vacuformed but the manufacturer only provides one, so you
have to be very careful when cutting it. I have to say that the kit has good
surface details and fine panel lines. However, it needs some effort to get all
the pieces together because they don't have any assembly guides and there are
huge gaps, mostly between the wing piece and fuselage. It is recommended to do
some research to find out how to correctly detail the cockpit interior. Anyway,
being the only available injection molded kit for this plane in the market, you
will have to live with these few shortcomings.
I
used some resin aftermarket items to add the LAU rocket pods and the Twin-Mag
gun pods to my model. They are produced by a Mexican manufacturer named "Fibermodel",
which also has a PC-7 kit, a T-28A conversion set and many other resin products
for modelers. In fact, I think these pods are very well done and helped me to
give a more aggressive look to my PC-7…
CONSTRUCTION
The
Aeroclub instruction sheet is not a great guide to build this model. It only has
an exploded drawing of the plane and very scarce information typed with an old
writing machine. I recommend you to take some time to find walkaround pictures
of the real plane in order to avoid missing details during this process.
The
wing and the entire tail section are single pieces and both need a good amount
of filler and sanding. Be careful to add as much weight as you can inside the
nose in order to prevent tail-sitting.
Building
the model was straightforward but as I mentioned before, I had to fill many
large gaps with small plastic pieces and putty. After the construction stage was
completed and the vacuformed canopy glued in place, I applied a coat of Tamiya
primer spray to find surface imperfections, which were promptly deleted by
sanding.
PAINTING
I
selected this version because of two important factors: First, the PC-7s (along
with the IAI Aravas) were the first fixed-winged machines that saw real action
in the last fifty years. And second, simply because I loved the exotic and
eye-catching Azteca sharkmouth camouflaged scheme. Interior was painted in
Medium Gray and wheel bays in Silver, like the rest of the landing gear.
Tactical camouflage consisted of Pale Green, Olive Green and Sand with
undersides in Duck Egg Blue. All acryl paints used were Model Master's sprayed
with my old single-action Paasche airbrush.
DECALS
This
interesting sheet from Aztec Models includes many other PC-7 versions of the
Mexican, Chilean, Iraqi, UAE and Myanmar air forces plus many white / black stencils in English and Spanish. There is
nothing new to say about Aztec products: Professional research information,
detailed color art guide and excellent performance of decals. Unfortunately,
this set is very hard to find.
WEATHERING
The
techniques used were pre-shading and post-shading. There was no need to apply an
oil wash to highlight panel lines as they showed up clearly with a single
sprayed coat of diluted Flat Black during post-shading. As these planes are
trainers, they are maintained clean most of the time.
CONCLUSION
I
found this kit in an e-bay auction and took me a ferocious bid war to get it at
a final price of 25 dollars, which is expensive for a 1/72 model but you could
find this same kit in online stores for a much higher price. Aeroclub did a good
job capturing the shape and details of this good-looking airplane, so I think
the price is worth…
REFERENCES
-
"Encyclopedia
of World Military Aircraft", AIRtime Publishing. 1996.
-
Mexican
National Defense official website.
Thank
you all and regards from
Monterrey, México.
Fernando I. Moreno
Villa
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