Horsa glider, Italeri 1/72

The Airspeed Horsa was a British transport glider developed by the Airspeed Limited and produced by the same company and by the Austin Motor Corporation and by Harris Lebus, in the '40s.

The Horsa was used by the Royal Air Force and by the United States Army Air Force in the second half the WWII, and it was an important vehicle: indeed it was one of the iconic vehicles of the D-Day, transporting the soldiers that for first saw the French soil.
Its name Horsa came from Horsa of Kent, brother of king Hengest of Kent, a legendary figure of the British history.
Its designer, Arthur Hessell Tiltman, declared that Horsa " ...went from the drawing board to the air in ten months, which was not too bad considering the drawings had to be made suitable for the furniture trade who were responsible for all production".

The wingspan of the Horsa was 88 feet, and its length 67 feet, and a weight of 15250 pounds.
For a glider, it was considered sturdy and greatly manoeuvrable. The design was based on a high-wing cantilever monoplane with wooden wings and a wooden semi-monocoque fuselage.

THE KIT
The Italeri kit is old. Very old... I didn't find the date of the the original issue, but you can understand that is decades old looking at the molds: details are crude, flash is present in generous amount. I bought it for a deal on Ebay, and the decals had yellowed very much (I partly fixed the problem exposing them for a couple of days to the sunlight).
My rendition of the kit depicts one of the gliders used during the D-Day, as the invasion strips clearly states (these stripes were masked and painted before to apply my camo scheme).
Mi goal was to depict a glider in very heave conditions of use, so great care was reserved to the weathering, trying to reproduce many subtle streak as in real life.

Comments

Federico Kereki (not verified)
Mon, 10/21/2013 - 00:12

Hi! Just a question -- were gliders ever used more than once? I think they were "one-use-only" so they would look like new; can anybody help me here?

admin
Wed, 01/29/2014 - 17:16

I think you're right... but i could not resist to the tempation to weather it. Also... we can imagine that during the rough landing they would get dirty ;)

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