Not to long ago, Leading Edge Decals came out with markings for a Norseman float plane. They come in both 1/72 and 1/48 scales. They represent a machine used by Ear Falls Airways. Now having personally flown over Ear Falls every day for 2 years, and having seen my share of Norseman aircraft in Northern Ontario, I was interested. Well I said as much and I was promptly challenged to produce the kit within two weeks. You can imaging who said such a thing. (look for the answer at the end of this review)

The kit used was the Modelcraft Norseman. This kit is a very close blow up of the Matchbox 1/72nd kit. When you open the box, two things are apparent. Firstly, because of the kits heritage, there is little detailing like panels and rivets. The detailing that is there is recessed; good news there. Secondly, the plastic used is translucent white plastic. You can almost see through it. My concern, not having encountered this plastic before, was will I be able to make the plane look the same color with out the darker interior color showing through the white?

The instructions are pretty easy to follow, so wandering off the track really isn't necessary. The interior is rather plane jane so I added some seat belts, a couple instrument panel decals, and a tied down load of barrels in the back. I painted the whole interior light grey. (Almost any color could be used, as many have been altered from the factory finish.) As the windows are somewhat large, the added detail makes the interior look like more than an empty warehouse.

The fit of the major components is good, with very little flash to deal with. The Fuselage halves went together easily and required no filling afterwards. The only thing I did fill was the detail of an aft cargo hatch on both sides of the aircraft. It does not look right to have the hatch in an area of fabric behind a clearly visible bulkhead, and I have never seen a Norseman with this hatch. The wings come with separate control surfaces. These also went on with no trouble. Once mounted to the fuselage, they did need some fill in at the roots to cover up a rather large and obvious seam. The floats went together well, although a couple putty spots were required.

The trouble comes with the smaller parts of the aircraft. The kit comes with options for wheels, skis or floats. They all use the same pylon. What this means for the floats is that the pylon and float supports line up at different angles. This can be fixed with a file. More trouble some was that once the float supports are on, they close in too much toward the center, not allowing the pylons to come down easily between them. This was not a problem on the dry fit! My solution was to bend the supports outwards and shaving off their tops. Add a little gap filling SuperGlue and I was back in business. The other problem was the wing struts. They are a hair too short at the outboard end.

Everything else went without to much trouble. I used a mix of many paint brands to achieve the final scheme. I was told that I need not do any thing fancy to meet my challenge, but getting inspired I decided to rig the floats with the appropriate cable for the water rudders. I used electrical wire from work. The kits also does not have step ladders for the aft cargo doors, only a simple addition of styrene and this was fixed.

As for decals, Leading Edge stuff is always good. The only two things I had to do to make me happy was the prop markings that go on the floats are the same color orange as the rest of the decals. I felt that they should be red so I dug into the spares. The orange #1127 came out a little light to match the decals, add a little red and it was okay. I was pleased with the kit. As for my two week deadline, Lets just say that I might be interested in some more challenges down the road. Thanks Rick!