Wings of Texaco 1930 Travel Air Model R "Mystery Ship" Die Cast Model/Coin Bank - 5th in the Series

Detail on this model plane is excellent.

Elegant looking collectible. It simply is beautiful, especially if you like things that are art deco or aviation related.

First, this model is listed as a toy. It is actually an adult collectable, a bit fragile and expensive for a toy.This is definitely one of Ertl's best diecast aircraft, if not THE best one. The assembly is good, and everything fits together better than average. Paint finish is good. I looked at four of these in the store before I selected one to purchase, and saw no noteworthy paint flaws.The model is proportioned well, with all the main details present. The small braces at the wing roots, and the oil-cooling radiators on the underside of the wings look right. All markings are pad printed (a paint process), clear and sharp, and complete. No stickers on this one, something which turns me off on some other Wings Of Texaco planes.One point above many of Ertl's planes, on this one they got the engine right! It shows a correct nine cylinders, complete with the heads and pushrods. It's all on a single molded disk, but looks good. Only goof here, the crankcase should be red on this model, not silver. The silver propeller is of poly plastic, looks accurate, and spins well.Like many of Ertl's aircraft, this has a black poly canopy. If clear doesn't work for Ertl designs, I never understood why they couldn't have used a light gray or silver. I think that would better represent a "clear" canopy. On this model, the very top of the canopy slides forward to reveal the coin slot.The wheels are black poly plastic, barely visible under the wheel pants, anyway. They do turn. There is an accurately shaped tail skid, also of black poly.Only three small screws and the coin removal door detract from the underside being accurate.The wire bracing on the wings and landing gear is represented on the model by very small black nylon cord. It looks good. Even at 1/30th scale, accurate sized wire, or anything else, would be too fine and fragile for a practical model.Another minor inaccuracy is the paint scheme, as compared to the actual "Texaco 13" Travel Air.This model has the Texaco 13's second paint job.The actual plane had a moderate crash right after completion, and the repaired plane got the red and white scheme shown on this model. The white here should actually be a slight ivory color. Also, all of the red was actually outlined with a dark blue pinstripe, which isn't shown on the model at all. This would be almost too small to see at 1/30th scale, anyway. The blue stripe would be no wider than a line drawn with a ball-point pen.The plane was this red and white scheme during its entire racing and record setting career. The actual Texaco 13 hangs in the Chicago Museum of Science and Technology, wearing this paint scheme.The first paint was red and yellow, also issued by the Wings Of Texaco series (one model plane in each case of 12 had the red and yellow paint). Ertl got this partially wrong, as the wings should be solid red, with a yellow "NR 1313". Ertl reversed the colors and put a red scallop leading edge on the wing.This was the fifth plane in the Texaco series, issued in 1997. I see it has been issued again as Wings of Texaco #19 in 2011, with a new paint scheme. I've found no information that the actual airplane ever had the new scheme.The Texaco 13 and its pilot, Frank Hawks, are well covered online and worth reading about. Both of them were pretty amazing.