KIT:

 Minicraft 1/144 KC-97G

KIT #

 1441

PRICE:

 MSRP $12.99

DECALS:

 One version: generic SAC

REVIEW BY:

Scott Van Aken

NOTES:

 

 

 

Minicraft has recently been adding to it's already impressive list of 1/144 subjects by adding the KC-97G and other members of the family. This is a real boon not only to military modelers but to airliner enthusiasts as well as one version is the Stratocruiser in Pan Am markings. One of the benefits of doing large aircraft in this scale is that they don't overwhelm the display area and don't take a big chunk of dead presidents to buy.

OK, so what do you get with this beast. Well, just scoping out the kit it seems like everything you need is there except the nose weight. Overall, the molding looks good, but not super crisp. Here are some specifics. There are no windows to mask, all except the cockpit ones being decal. The upper nose is in clear plastic with lots of room for fairing it in with the fuselage. The engines have no detail and the props look like the spinners are a bit large for a KC-97, but they are acceptable in this scale as is the lack of engine detail. The biggest concern I have is that the landing gear is very scale and therefore looks to be quite weak; especially the nose gear. This is a concern as this beast is bound to be tailheavy and will require substantial nose weight.

The instruction sheet appears more than adequate and the decal sheet looks fine as well, though rather uninspiring, a problem with SAC aircraft of this period. The decals are made by Necomisa of Mexico and from previous use of their decals, should be no problem at all.