Savoia S73

I was building some model to commemorate the 70-year jubilee of Bromma Airport. One plane I decided to build was a Savoia S73. I wanted one because I have a soft spot for trimotors and also because a Sabena S73 attended the opening of Bromma Airport in 1936. The problem is that there aren't any injection moulded kits for it but the bomber Savoia Marchetti SM81 was a development of the S73 so I bought the 1/72 scale SM81 from Supermodel for the project. There used to be a conversion set to do this that now is out of production, but since I'm not too fond of resin it was no big deal. (Model finished 2006)

The operations involved to convert a bomb plane to an airliner was in short: Remove the hump under the fuselage and fill the hole. Remove the roof turret and fill the hole. Fill the fill the windows and other openings in the sides of the fuselage. Make new passenger windows and a door. Not much to it really.

I decided to remove a large piece of the fuselage rather than trying to fill every single window. I was afraid that the filler would break when cutting out the new windows. I filled all holes with plastic card and used an automotive acrylic filler that I bought at a gas station. It reminds me lot of the Tamiya putty, but it dries fast and doesn’t shrink so I like it when I have to do large fillings. I drew up the windows and drilled a small hole in each corner before I cut out the windows with an ordinary hobby knife with a new sharp blade. I added plastic rods to the sides to simulate the steel tube/fabric frame and added ribs to the tail as well.

I picked a shade of tan that pleased me from the Gunze Sangyo acrylic colours and added homemade decals. Now I have a model of the plane that was here on the opening day of the Airport. It might not be a 100% correct model but at least it looks like a Savoia S73 at a quick glance and that is good enough for me. I build because it is fun and sometimes I can let big issues pass and sometimes I have to get small details right.

Stockholm May 14, 2005

Updated August 16, 2012

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