SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS ON THE ACADEMY VENTURA AND HOW to BUILT A LOCKHEED LODESTAR

I have always been fascinated by the Lockheed twins and particularly the Lodestar - Ventura combination. In fact all Lockheed aircraft have fascinated me to a greater or lesser extent since most Lockheed aircraft have been such good looking 'planes. From the Model 10 Electra to the Model 18 Lodestar and Ventura series and moving on to the P-38 Lightning they were all pleasing to the eye. Going a step further the Constellation must surely still rank as one of the most beautiful airliners ever built. Their early jets like the F-80 Shooting Star and the T-33 were also good lookers.

Having, worked on Venturas in 1956 I waited and hoped for many years that some manufacturer would bring out a kit of the Ventura. Then great anticipation when a Trade Fair report indicated that Frog were planning to produce a Ventura. Again a lengthy wait and when they were on the point of bringing out the kit, Frog went into receivership and my hopes went down the drain. Again years went by until eventually and rather unexpectedly Academy produced not one but four versions of the Ventura. It never rains but it pours. Needless to say, I was overjoyed and brought a number of these kits. Two solid nose PV-1's and one of each of the others. Why didn't Academy take it a step further and produce a Lodestar while they were at it ?!

My initial joy was tempered by discovering that although the kit was beautifully moulded with engraved panel lines etc. it nevertheless had its failings. In my opinion Academy have failed to capture the "look" of the Ventura. They failed to capture the chunky or portly look of the plane. The kit fuselage simply looks too thin and streamlined and the nose too flat and sharp or pointed. Also the cockpit canopy is incorrect as they have not captured that sloping windscreen of the Ventura. Rareplanes did an excellent job of their vacform Ventura in the late 1970's. I bought one at Du Quars in Pretoria in 1978 and built it in 1980. It still looks good on my display shelf. While not without its faults I believe Rareplanes succeeded just that much better in capturing the "look" of the Ventura and they made a beautiful job of the canopy. So it would seem to me that if you want a Ventura that looks like a Ventura then it might be an idea to try and mate the Rareplanes fuselage and tail with the Academy wings and engines. On the other hand the Vacform is long since out of production and I doubt whether many of you have an unbuilt one stashed away anyway. So back to square one and good luck with your Academy kits. All of which brings me to the question of the Lodestar.For many years I have wanted a Lodestar on my display shelf and for many years I have had the AIRMODEL conversion kit with which, used with the Airfix Hudson you were supposed to build a Lodestar. The conversion supplied you with two vacform fuselage halves, a canopy and two vacform top halves of a Lodestar / Ventura wing. These you were supposed to mate with the lower halves of the Hudson wing. This, to me, was quite ludicrous since the shape of the Hudson wing does not match the Lodestar wing, and even now I am at a loss to know just how one was supposed to do this. When Academy brought out their Ventura, things started looking up and my immediate thought was that I could use the Ventura wings with the Vacform fuselage and build a Lodestar. It all sounded so easy! Eventually I even went so far as to cut out and sand down the two vacform Lodestar fuselage halves. The windows were drilled and filed out and with much trial and error I made two bulkheads which were firmly glued into the starboard fuselage half. This enabled me to do dry runs with the fuselage but throughout all this 1 started harbouring serious doubts about the vacform as it simply didn't look right. Then I discovered that the fuselage was too wide and would accept neither the vacform canopy nor the Hudson canopy. That did it and the whole darn conversion kit was consigned to the spares box.