Building the Gotha.

[Flying Officer Kyte]

This is the next of the Giants that I have tackled thus far.
Because of some differences in detail I adopted a slightly different build plan from the Handley Page.
1. Clean up the casting.
2. Drill the strut holes.N.B. The cabine struts need smaller diameter holes. ( Watch out for unneeded holes, and what I perceive to be wrong uns, over the engines. All my research suggests that the supports form an inverted vee above the engine. The holes as supplied give a vee configuration. For the cabine struts, a spot hole on the body of the plane, where they will seat will help with location later.
3. Glue on the engine pods, but not the propellers. Unlike the Handley, the pods can't be swung later for painting because of the upper struts. You may like to pre paint them at this stage of the build, and undercoat the rest of the aircraft. I chose to use my usual method of doing this when the assembly is mostly complete.
4. Glue on lower wing.
5. Glue in lower wing struts in pairs. This time do not start with the cabine struts. This will be easier later.
6. As you glue the struts, use the upper wing to register them for position in the vertical.
7. Glue on the upper wing.
8. Next the engine struts can be added. I found a pair of tweezers handy here to thrust them up into the holes between the wings. Conversely , you can just drill a hole and slip them in from the top, but this makes it harder to register them correctly underneath.
9. However for the cabine struts I foung this the easy way to go. location spots had been drilled by me on the plane body, and I just slipped in lengths of paper clip through the top wing holes to resemble the struts. This adds a bit of strength to the middle of the wing.
10. Flip the plane over and add the undercart. This is one of the more easy undercarts to assemble.
11. Back to the top and glue on the tailplane. A bit of fettling here may be needed to get a good register. I countersunk the holes a bit to allow for the casting radius on the pins. This seemed better than weakening the pins by filing them so near to the shear point.
12. Place the props and crew in place but don't glue.
!3. Undercoat the aircraft.
14. Remove crew and props, and paint.
15. Paint aircraft.
16. Glue in crew.
17. Add decals.
18. Finally glue on props after decals are dry.

I am currently thinking of adding some bomb racks. Will let you know how this goes later.
Rob.