Roden 1/144 Fairchild C-119C Boxcar Kit First Look

By Fotios Rouch

First Look

The C-119 was developed as an improvement to the C-82 design with more powerful engines and more cargo space and larger cargo load accommodation. Production went on from 1949 to 1955 with over eleven hundred produced. Other than cargo duties the C-119 was converted to serve as a gunship in Vietnam and later as a firefighter as well.

This is the first injected plastic kit in 144th scale.  The box art look nice and it really looks like it is an oil painting or such and certainly not digital artwork.

It looks pretty nice in the box with nice engraved detail and reasonably good molding with some amount of flashing in certain areas.  Also evident are some sink marks around the flap areas and top of the fuselage as well as the fuselage doors.

Inspecting the sprues reveals that other variants will be forth coming. There are parts for the bottom boom fins, J34 turbojets, Stinger radar nose and cannons, etc. The clear parts are OK but they need a deep in Future to take care of the optical imperfections.

There is no cockpit or interior whatsoever and it does not look like there was any thought to provide one.  Although the cockpit opening is not huge it is a shame that nothing at all is provided.  Having said that why was there any reason to add complexity to the fuselage assembly with separate cargo clam shells and separate rear doors? Is there maybe a chance that maybe the separate clam shell doors are there so a C-199J Satellite version could be possible too?

One decal option is only available and I remember this one from many years ago in a Microscale decal set.  There is silver backing on the national insignia, USAF and serials which will help out with painting.

For a look at this kit built-up, look here.