C-17A Globemaster III

Published on
January 4, 2015
Review Author(s)
Scale
1/144
MSRP
$38.99
Product / Stock #
5867
Company: Revell, Inc. - Website: Visit Site
Provided by: Revell, Inc. - Website: Visit Site
Box Art

History

The C-17 was funded for development in 1984 and the first one was delivered in 1991 to the USAF for testing. The C-17 was originally designed to replace the C-130 and augment the C-5 and C-141. As we all know the C-130 and the C-5 are still going and the C-141 has been removed from service and has been sent to the boneyard for scrapping. The initial order was for 120 units and that was bumped up in 2002 following the attacks of September 11th to 180. Although the USAF is the main user there are many other countries that utilize the C-17.

The Kit

The kit is molded in light gray plastic. Several of the parts had a grainy texture to them and several of the sprue attachment points were thick and difficult to remove. The construction is fairly straight forward.

There are a few areas that I would advise using caution on. The first is the main landing gear. I would not attach this until you have the fuselage assembled. The reason I say this is because your gear will end up sitting squatted down and may not even stick out the bottom of the fuselage. Speaking of MLG, the fit of the MLG doors is horrible (see photo). These are really designed to be closed, but you can do a gear down option by cutting the doors in half. That is great in theory, but it leaves no attachment point for the doors. The fuselage bottom is the next area of concern. This is a plate that attaches to the bottom of the fuselage. The fit is pretty good, but you will have to do some filling and sanding to make the seam disappear. The problem is that one of the panel lines (which is raised) will not line up. The fix is to remove the panel line and then use plastic strip or putty and replace the panel line once the part is secure. I used tape and sprayed Mr. Surfacer 500 to replace the panel line with good results (see photo). The other two areas are very minor, but should be addressed. The color call outs use generic names verse FS numbers. Finding reference to the FS numbers is not that difficult. The last thing is add weight to the nose of the aircraft if you are doing the gear down version. There is no call out for it on the instructions, but there is plenty off room.

Once complete the model looks like a C-17. The engine nacelles have a high level of detail to them and with masking and painting gives a great representation of the Pratt & Whitney engines. The wings may appear to be warped, but that is how they should be. I checked them with my reference and they matched up perfect. The decals go down easy, but I caution that you need to make sure you have a nice gloss surface or you will get silvering.

Overall the model is not that difficult of a build, but you will have to use some basic modeling skills to get it to turn out nice. I am just happy to get it off my plate and move on to some other models.

I would like to thank Revell and IPMS/USA for allowing me to do this review on this kit.

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