1/72 Aeroclub Pilatus PC-7 Turbo Trainer

Gallery Article by Fernando I. Moreno Villa on Dec 3 2009

 

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.

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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

Photos and text © by Fernando I. Moreno Villa