Here is my latest model off the bench – only my second for this year (with the last one being way back in January – slow year…) – the Revell 1/72 Sopwith Triplane. This kit dates back from the mid 1960s and suffers from the traits of the era – no cockpit detail, some rough / blobby and exaggerated mouldings, rough ‘textured’ flying surfaces, and chunky attachment points for struts and undercarriage (to be fair, it was designed for kids to build). Surprisingly though, the wings were spot on in dimensions, and the fuselage basically good in dimension, save for the nose.
So I had to do some work. In short, I scratchbuilt the cockpit, re-skinned the fuselage sides and bottom, re-contoured the cowling cheek panels with putty, replaced the engine and cowling using items from the Roden Sopwith Camel, scratchbuilt the undercarriage, new wheels, extended the elevators, and sought to refine or add other details here and there. Rigging was added from various types of elastics. Truth be told, the wing alignment isn’t as perfect as I would have liked, and is a compromise in a few areas, but it isn’t too bad all in all. Some details do look a bit blobby in the photos…
Progress pics can be seen here:http://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=1744
I painted the model in the markings of N5493 of F/Cdr Robert Alexander Little, 9 Squadron Royal Naval Air Service, Spring 1917. Though he flew for the RNAS, Little was an Australian, and was (and remains) the highest scoring Australian born fighter pilot of the war (and in fact of any war), with an official score of 47 victories. He was shot down and died of his wounds on 27 May 1918. Little scored quite a number of victories in N5493, which he nick-named “Blymp” – I nick name he had given his baby son. N5493 went through a number of marking changes whilst under Little’s charge, and after – I went with the earliest markings of this aircraft and so kept weathering to a relative minimum.
Anyways, here are some pics:
Here are some pics of some of the details / modifications:
Anyways, glad to finally have something off the bench…! All comments / criticisms / feedback welcomed!
Cheers,
BC
