1:144 Convair CV 340 - Two Pipes Conversion with Landing Flaps (for Roden Kits)

A piston twin for short routes

The Convair CV 340 grew out of the smaller type 240 by lengthening the fuselage and enlarging the wing. It flew in 1951, was powered by two Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp eighteen-cylinder radials and carried roughly forty passengers in its cabin. It was a typical machine of postwar America: put onto short routes between smaller towns, tough enough for airfields with a grass surface and so durable that a number of carriers got rid of it only after decades. It reached Europe both with civil operators and with several armed forces.

Convairs with piston engines have a special standing among collectors: they are big enough for a conversion to come out on them, and at the same time more of them fit into a display case than of the jet giants. That is exactly why it pays to give time on them to things that would be lost on a larger machine.

Exhausts and flaps in one package

On the Convairs the exhaust gases of the radial engines were led away by collector pipes running along the nacelle, and their arrangement differed between individual series and operators. The name of the set gives the form with two pipes, to which flaps lowered into the landing position are added.

A combination of two pieces of work means a double preparation. The nacelle is modified by sanding until the new pipe beds down along its whole length, while on the wing the work is done with a cut. It is recommended to start with the engines: if it turned out that the shape of the nacelle in the kit sits differently, the plan can still be changed, whereas a wing already cut open cannot be put back together. It is advisable to apply the paint at the moment when both modifications are done, so that the shade agrees along the whole length of the wing.