1/72 Crosby Cr-4, 1938

I thought I'd share a few photos of my recent build of the Crosby Cr-4 racing airplane by Fiddler's Green. To make it more accurate, I added a bubble canopy made of card painted with acrylics, and brushed on a few thick coats of clear gloss to give it a glassy look. It also received a tail skid, pitot tube, and a fuel tank vent. The Cr-4 was ahead of it's time, featuring a streamlined all aluminum fuselage, retracting landing gear, and a bubble canopy. It was a small airplane, and in 1/72 scale it measures a mere 2 11/16 inches from wingtip to wingtip.

I mounted the finished model on a woodgrained cardstock base, covered with a patch of static grass to represent the primitive airfields in use at the time.

It was a fun, trouble free build, and I've ordered quite a few others in the Fiddler's Green stable of '30s racers, so my Crosby won't be lonely for long

Pictures aren't the best.

Thank you all for your kind comments. Many of these early racers are really small when shrunk down to 1/72. I have several models going at the same time right now, one of which is the Wittman Bonzo racer from Daisey Designs. The build was held up for a bit while I was looking for just the right material to make the wing strut cables from. I finally settled on .010" steel guitar string. I'll be restarting the model over the next week or so and will post pictures when it's all done. I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.