1/72 Spence Air Photo Cierva Autogyro/Autogiro

[frank2056]

When I walked home from grade school, I'd stop by my Mom's lab before going home. Next to her labon Pico Blvd.  was an aerial photography company, Spence Air Photo, Inc.  They had a glass storefront displaying their work and there were usually two people working; a young man and an older man - the owner, Robert Spence. I don't know who the younger man was  - he may have been a pilot - but he was friendly and didn't mind talking about airplanes for a few minutes with a little kid.  I remember the model of a Jenny that they had on display.

I'm sure that they never flew an autogyro... but I have a 1/72 RS Models Cierva C.30 that I wanted to use as practice for the 1/35 Miniart kit, so I decided to whif the RS kit as a Spence Air Photo autogyro.

It's not a very detailed kit (neither was the original autogyro) so I'm almost done with the build. Each strut in both the landing gear and rotor support had to be added individually; not fun but surprisingly quick. The ugly joint between the struts and the fuselage was apparently a feature of the real thing, not a kit or construction flaw.







I think I'll remake the camera and make a mounting bracket for it, then make up the decals. I 'll probably use one of their B&W images of either UCLA or of the street I live on now (which is near campus) as a backdrop.

[Dizzyfugu]

Nice model! 

[NARSES2]

Nice model! 

Indeed 

I've got a 3/4 finished one in the stash that stalled many moons ago. Was going to be FAA. Can't remember why it stalled now....getting old 

[frank2056]

I've got a 3/4 finished one in the stash that stalled many moons ago. Was going to be FAA. Can't remember why it stalled now....getting old 

Probably the many struts! I almost gave up on it. At some point, all of the struts holding up the rotor head popped off in ones or twos. Much cursing ensued. The instructions are pretty vague about the landing gear struts. I had to superglued them together.

Still, they somehow went on straight and level, despite the microscopic attachment points.

[Wardukw]

Very cool..theres a couple of auto gyros that fly over the camp where i live most weekends and hell ive got a RC one .
So yip i like these and ya did great Frank..this is a little beauty   

[KiwiZac]

I love it! I had and sold (to my regret) the Azur 1/72 one but I'd love the MiniArt big version.

NERD ALERT! Cierva called his machine Autogiro, autogyro is the generic name. So all Autogiros are autogyros but not all autogyros are Autogiros! As you were 

[PR19_Kit]

I've got the Merlin kits Cierva/Avro Autogyro kit.

And that's enough said about it.................

[frank2056]

I've got the Merlin kits Cierva/Avro Autogyro kit.

And that's enough said about it.................

One nice thing about Merlin kits - all their kits were basically the same - a lump of white plastic and some metal bits. The plastic parts would be longer or shorter depending on the part. It was up to you to carve the plane out of the plastic!

[frank2056]

Fixed the title, per Zac.

I painted the tail and the rotor head in light blue and the rotor blade tabs in red for some color:









The camera is a beefed up version of the original - I used superglue and talc to beef up the sides and make it look more like this one (Milton Kent with his aerial camera, June 1953):



The "Spence air photos" decal on the side is based on their logo, seen in the lower right of this picture of  UCLA in 1940:



Zoom in on the image above... lover right, if you download the original, there's a late model P-51 and an A-20? in the open field (which is now the Court of Sciences) so this picture was probably taken in the mid-late 1940s.

All in all, a pretty quick build, considering all the many fiddly and critical bits.

[AndrewF]

Nice job! There was one of these in the Museum of Transport in Glasgow - I don't know if it's still there (the museum has moved a few times since I was a kid) or in Kelvingrove Museum now.

[PR19_Kit]

That looks really good, and very 'of the period'. 

[Old Wombat]

Excellent work, Frank! Great (whif) take on a childhood memory!

[NARSES2]

That's come out really well 

[zenrat]