Anigrand Craftworks 1/72 C-5A/B Galaxy

 While in no way glamorous, airlifters are an integral part of any modern day large scale military operation, & that respect, the US Air Force would be hard pressed to do it without the C-5 Galaxy.  With a payload of 270,000 lbs & aerial refueling, no spot on the globe is out of reach.

Almost all of the major exterior parts are split in halves, mostly top & bottom. The fuselage is in 4 pieces , split left to right, forward & aft. The nose visor, MLG sponsons, and closed rear cargo door are all one-piece parts.  There are locating tabs to aid in joining the fuselage pieces together.  The surface scribing is recessed, and is a bit on the deep & wide side for the fuselage panels, but looks much better where it represents control surfaces.  

The interior of the fuselage has molded in ribs, but the kit does not come with any type of insulation blankets normally found on the aircraft.  The cargo bay floor & ceiling are both split into forward & aft sections.  The cargo floor does have raised ridges, which when painted, should replicate the typical pattern of non-skid & bare metal.  The ceiling has a waffle like pattern, which approximates the real deal.  The ceiling also is the floor of the upper deck. There is no real detail to speak of on the upper deck, since it will all be hidden, unless the modeler chooses to remove the molded in upper deck doors, much like what is seen at the typical hot summer airshows, where the doors are open for ventilation.  The cockpit consists of seats & no instrument panel, but again, its almost impossible to see anything through the clear resin windshield. 

Each of the TF-39 engines consist of the left & right halves, with the pylon molded as part of the inboard half, the visible first stage fan blades, and the exhaust cone. The completed engine assys do have a specific location on the wing, as the pylon/wing mating surface is different for each engine because of the slanting curvature of the wing bottom.

The wings have large mounting tabs & two large holes for the separate center section to mount to.   The center section serves as a interlock for both wings, & also forms the  exterior fuselage for the wing section.  There are 6 individual flap actuator fairings for each wing,  & are of different sizes depending on their location on the wing.  A clear resin position light is provided for each wingtip.

The landing gear consists of 25 identical wheels, 2 wheels with an open center for the inboard nose wheels, & 2 wheels that seen to have been through in as spares, because they don’t match any of the other wheels in term of center hole pattern.  The shock strut portion of the main gear is made from turned aluminum, the 8 retraction jackscrews are brass, & the torque tube the wheels mount to are ABS plastic.  I discovered a problem, in that the stub axle at the end of each torque tube is  smaller in diameter than the hole in each wheel.  That’s 24 wheels that need to have their axel hole diameters reduced, or 24 axles that need to have their diameters increased.  The nose gear strut is all ABS, but at least the axle diameters are the same size as the holes in the wheels.  All the gear is molded in the extended position.

The instructions have several black &white photographs showing the location of the parts once that assembly is complete.  All the parts are labeled on the instructions, but none are labeled on the parts themselves, so some comparison dry fitting will be required. 

The decals consist of two identical sheets for an example from Dover AFB.  Each sheet provides markings for one side of the model. The sheet does have the white aerial refueling markings plus the two white stripes that are typically found on top of the nose visor. 

Yes folks, this is a big, big model.  The fuselage will stretch to about 40 inches from nose to tail, & the wings will only need 2 inches less space at 38 inches, tip to tip.  In my dry fitting so far, it seems it will be a tail sitter, since the balance point, so far, is behind the aft most gear. It’s not for the beginner, as the instructions are very simplified, & knowledge of working with resin is a must.  The potential is there for loading the cargo deck with typical load outs.  A quick search on the web did turn up 1/72 HMMVS kits, and another search turned up images of aircraft being loaded into the cargo deck that are available as a 1/72^nd kit.

If you have the space, time, desire, & most of all, disposable income to get this kit, go for it.  You might never see this aircraft as typical injection molded kit in this scale.

Chris Ishmael

June 2011

Review courtesy of me & my wallet.