Stinson Reliant

from Wikipedia (and I choose Wikipedia because it is always to the point)..

"The Stinson Reliant was a popular single-engine four to five seat high-wing monoplane manufactured by the Stinson Aircraft Division of the Aviation Manufacturing Corporation of Wayne, Michigan.

1,327 Reliants of all types were made from 1933 to 1941, in different models, from SR-1 to SR-10. The final commercial model, the Stinson Reliant SR-10, was introduced in 1938. A militarized version was first flown in February 1942 and remained in production through several additional versions (all externally identical) until late 1943 for the US and British armed forces.

Reliant production can be broken into two distinct types - the straight wing Reliants (all models up to SR-6) and the gull wing Reliants (all models from SR-7 and after including the militarized V-77/AT-19) with there being little in common between the two groups of types. The straight wing Reliant had a wing of constant chord and thickness which was supported by two struts each side with additional bracing struts. In contrast the taper wing Reliant had the broadest chord and thickness of the wing at mid span, with the outer wing trailing edge heavily angled forward and a rounded cutout on the leading edge root, all supported by a single strut. The taper wing had a significant step up between the fuselage and the wing, and the changes in wing thickness gave it a distinct gull appearance from the front."

Here is a photo of one of the straight-winged Reliants, an SR-5a.

Here are two photos of the 'Gullwing' version...

And a photo of the luxurious interior

...

The model I made is vintage AMT 1/48 scale Stinson Reliant SR-9 of the 'Gullwing' series. The model kit was very old (mid 1970's) so the decals provided were dried out and useless. At the time of building the kit, a 'What-if' group build was taking place on Aeroscale. I don't do many 'What-if' models, but I joined the group and marked my Reliant as a 1930's aircraft as used by the German Air Force, 'as-if', WW1 had ended early in the war after the so-called Christmas Truce of 1915. Furthermore,'as-if' Nazism never had existed (hence no swastikas). I used spare decals from my stock of WW1 German decals and added typical pin-striping of the 'Golden Age' of aviation, plus red wing trailing edge highlights - more typical of WW1 biplanes. The 'Iron Cross', or Eisencreuz, markings were those as used in WW1 up until the spring of 1918.

Below are some photos I took during the building of the model...

here is a link to video, on Youtube, of a real Stinson Reliant (I haven't figured how to make this link 'work', so for now just copy and paste into your browser.) The Reliant was a people mover - pilot plus 3 or 4 passengers in comfort.

This is a video of a four passenger model SR-8 with a 245 HP Lycoming 9 cylinder radial engine.