This is my 101 years of military aviation theme model (okay okay, it took me longer than I thought to finish this one!). Nieuport IV was one of the types Italy used in Libya in 1911. Since the first Italian military planes had probably no markings on them, I decided to finnish this one in 1913 style. The Eagle of Savoy decals on the rudder are home made, the squadron markings are from the kit sheet. The Planet Model kit is basically alright. Of course I had to replace most of the landing gear and pylon parts with Strutz brass. I used the resin parts as models for my scrached parts. I also changed the kit propeller to a white metal part I found from my spare part box. The part is more accurate and adds weight to the nose, which is needed to keep the model in right position. For the first time, I tried heat streched cotton stick and copper wire constructions as turnbuckles. The results are not too convincing.
The Nieuport 10 kit is of typical Special Hobby quality. Which means it's quite nice actually! I did make some improvements, though. I added 1,5 mm plastic rod between the fuselage halves on the turtledeck side seam to improve the shape of the fuselage. I also added quite a few detail to the cockpit, including the rotary air intakes, which were missing also on the outside. I changed the upper wing center part rib number from 5 to the correct 4. I also had to shorten the v-struts quite a lot to make them fit.
There is a photo of this plane, which shows the strange roundels on the top side of the upper wing (thanks Tony at the Aerodrome!). The kit decal sheet got them right. The British roundels for the fuselage were too large, however, and I had to dig my decal archives for somewhat better ones.
The extra Lewis on the aviators right hand side is my own addition and almost fictional. There is a famous photo of a naval Nieuport 10 one-seater with such a gun mounting, but I have no proof that 3964 had one.
Omega has boxed a kit of an early production Nieuport 10 with Finnish decals and claims it to be late production Lebedev build machine. All of the typical Lebedev stencils are missing too. A fellow modeler Petri Sallinen was kind enough to give me his nice artwork for the Lebedev text near the tail on the port side. The Bare Metal & Foil clear ink jet printable decal sheet I used was a bit too thick, tho. The national markings that came with the kit might have been ok with D.63/18, but I wanted to do a model of the machine as it was in the spring 1918 in Lappeenranta with crudely painted swastikas all over the place. So the national markings are home made too.
I had work a lot on the nose deck to make the model look like a late production N10 with the pilot sitting in front. I also made the transparent panel in the upper wing center section and the cockpit needed lots of scratching and aftermarket parts. I should also have redone all the rib details, sanded the tail thinner etc etc. The engine, wheels and prop are from my spare part box.
I made this model for a Finnish modeling magazine Pienoismalli (www.pienoismalli.com). It is supposed to be a model of Dux built Nieuport 17 with the serial 1899 as it was in Lappeenranta in May/June 1918. The plane had swastikas painted over all the usual 14 Dux cockades. The blue swastika on white was originally the personal symbol of Count von Rosen, a Swedish nobleman who donated the first Thulin D (Morane-Saulnier type L) for the Finnish Air Force. The Dux Nieuport 17 1899 was used by Finnish White Guards in and later on by Finnish Air Force as D.61/18. For more details see: Keskinen, Partonen & Stenman: Finnish Air Force 1918-27 (Kari Stenman 2005) or - if you read Finnish - Suomen ilmailuhistoriallinen lehti vol 3/2004, where you'll find Kyösti Partonen's excellent article about Nieuports in Finland.
This is the good old Eduard Nieuport 17 kit, of course, with new decal sheet and a set of new PE parts, too. I think the kit is a classic and I won't mind, if they re-release it every year! The Mermaid Nieuport of 22 KAO, Russian Imperial Aviation Fleet, has been a definitive must for me ever since I saw the pictures of it in Geust & Petrov: Red Stars 3 (Apali 1999). I have tried to do decals for it with my computer and ink jet, but with poor results. So, you can imagine how enthusiastic I was, when I saw that Eduard is going to release this option with their Nieuport 17 in Russian Service Special edition. When I finally saw the actual decals, I was less enthusiastic. They are done with ordinary decal printing technique, which do not reproduce paintings like the mermaid very well. But then again, now that the decal is on the finished model, it does not look too bad, does it? The rudder roundels are a bit too small, should be slightly bigger than the lower wing roundels. The PE parts are nice, but I did not understood, how the PE windshield was supposed to fit its place. I had to modify it a lot. Among the PE parts there are nice alternative nose access panels, too. They are handy with some decal options, but check your references. The kit's own instructions about these are sometimes wrong. This mermaid plane sure did not have a big access panel on the pilot's left hand side. Eduard has improved their new additional engine for the kit (the kit's original engine is also there). The new engine, looking like 80 hp Le Rhône 9C is supposed to be turned around so, that the copper pipes are back and a PE part is offered for the engines round front panel. Unfortunately, doing like that you'll get a mirror image of Le Rhône 9J, ie the copper pipes behind the cylinders bend to wrong direction. Not necessarily very visible fault inside the cowling and easy to correct, if you want.
I used Citadel acrylics once again and - once again - a new formula for the aluminum dope (This was obviously a French built machine). It's 1 part of Fortress Grey and 2 parts of Mithril Silver. After satin varnish finish it looks quite satisfactory, I think. The engine cowling and other metal parts are painted with Chainmail colour. The photo of this plane in Red Stars 3 shows clearly the big stain on the fuselage I have tried to imitate on my model, but otherwise the bird doesn't seem to be very dirty and worn out, especially considering it's a Russian Nieuport. So I was moderate with dirt and weathering effects, though I had to put some on the model. Otherwise the one big stain would have looked somehow lonely.
My second efford with this mixture of Eduard Nieuport 17 parts and Hi Tech's own awful short run injection parts. It was still almost too much for a moderate modeler like me! But this scheme was so cool, that I decided to give the kit a second try. The model is supposed to be a Bolshevik 3 IAO Nieuport 24 bis used in the Russian Civil War 1917-22. There's a lot of guessing and details borrowed from other Russian Civil War Nieuports. There's only one photo of this plane in Geust & Petrov: Red Stars 3 (Apali 1999). Even the 'Vodka Devils' painting is not entirely visible in the photo. The wine bottle on the big devil's left hand is just guessing. The red stars are from the Iliad Design Russian Civil War Nieuports sheet and the Vodka Devils decal is home made. The main colour of the model is yet another of my experiments with 'aluminum dope'. This time I used 50% of Citadel acrylics Mithril Silver and 50% Skull White. The metallic hue is not strong, but it is there
Click the 'thumbnails' to see the larger picture!
My first Roden kit built! Very nice and accurate model and pleasant to build. I added only Eduard PE seat belts, valve pushing rods in front of the engine cylinders and a modified surplus Eduard Nieuport windshield. I also used Eduard's PE turnbuckles with the rigging. The result was even worse than my first try with them, so I think I won't use those any more. Roden's decals for this kit have received a lot of negative feedback and they certainly were a disappointment. Badly printed, inaccurate, fragile and difficult to apply. For me they were too much. Please note, however, than some better modelers have done beautiful builds with the kit's own decals! I used only the kit's national roundels. The 95th squadron buckin' mules are surplus decals from the Glencoe kit and the black sevens I made with my ink jet. The numbers might have been red, but black is easier with an ink jet. The red and golden spiral on the engine cowling looks nice, but its is not accurate. The bands are too wide. They should go one more time around the cowling!
UPDATE May 9 2008: Please note, that the Duks Nieuport 21 of the Finnish Red Guards, like many Russian Nieuport 21s, had in the centre of the upper wing. You can see it quite clearly in this photo: http://www.uta.fi/koskivoimaa/valta/1918-40/1918viikko7.htm
Yet another Nieuport inspired by the book Geust, C-F & Petrov, G: Red Stars 3! (see below). A Russian Dux made Ni 21 like this was used by the Finnish Red Guards during the civil war in Finland in 1918. The plane was photographed in Tampere (quite near my childhood home!) in February 1918. Later the plane was captured by the Finnish White Army on 6 April during the battle of Tampere. The plane might be the one that became the mysterious 'Ni11/16' of the Finnish Air Force with the code D.86/18 (later 1.D.453). According to this theory a Ni 17 type engine cowling was mounted on the plane afterwards. Nowadays there is also evidence, that D.86/18 was actually a Ni 17 belonging to a group of Nieuports that Finnish Captain Torikka and his Russian antirevolutionary collagues flew to Finland to help the White Army in April 1918. According to that explanation this Ni 21 captured from the Red Guards was used as spare parts.
Anyway, this is the good old Eduard Ni 17 in a new packet once again. The good old? No it isn't. This is a slightly improved version! Probably the one Eduard is now announcing to be released(?). The changes are not dramatic, but why should they be, since there were not much to improve. The undercarriage struts are now accurate, the fuselage halves fit better together, some small parts are differently attached to the sprue etc. The major mistakes of this Ni 21 kit are the engine and the engine cowling. This kit offers Le Rhône 9J and the more open type 'horseshoe' cowling commonly used with Ni 16 and occasionally with Ni 17, too. Ni 21 had Le Rhône 9 C and the type of horseshoe cowling used with Ni 11. I got accurate parts from the Eduard Ni 11 kit I converted to Ni 16 (see below)
Eduard goes better kit after kit! Me too, but not quite as fast! Eduard's Ni 11 is a real beauty! The good points are too numerous to mention and the mistakes are not much to mention about. Maybe the baddest are the wrong rigging instructions. According the instructions the kit's instrument panel is a standart part. That was not the case with Nieuport Bébés, thought some planes had one as a field modification. Eduard has released this kit also as a Profipack version with fancy PE parts and plentiful decal sheet. I chose this 'normal' kit, because I liked especially the nice decals for this plane of Paul Tarascon, the French one legged hero of N26. There are some PE parts in this model however. Borrowed from other kits. I detailed (not too well!) the engine with a PE part from a DML Dragon Fokker Dr 1 kit and the Lewis mounting is from the Nieuport 21 Eduard Profipack. I tried to modify it to look like the mounting on the only picture I've seen of this plane.
Mostly OOB. I added the transparent panel on the upper wing and the metal part of the tail skid. I also cut some 1,5 mm away from the forward struts of the undercarriage. Nungessers N1490 for a change. I think I will build at least one of his several N1895s too, since I want to make models of Ni17bis, Ni24bis and Ni25, or at least one of them in the future!
A sort of conversion kit with parts from Eduard's Nieuport 17 kit. This is no OOB thing, you have to modify the wings and make some parts yourself, including the windscreen. Eduard parts are - of course - excellent, but Hi Tech's own efforts do not really meet the standarts you'd expect with a rather expensive kit like this. There's some good resin parts and Eduard's photo eched parts - high quality as usual. The good thing about this kit is, that you can make all the late round fuselage Nieuport v-strutters out of it. Ni 24, 24 bis and 27 are the easiest. For 17 bis and 25 you have to modify the engine and engine cowling too. The decal sheet is poor, thought 'economical' in a witty way. It has markings for Charles Nungessers N1895, so it's usable for - at least - Ni 17 bis, 24 bis and 25! I used decals from Eduard's Ni 17 RFC version to make this Ni 27 of the No 1 Squadron, RFC, in Oct 1917.
Quite nice kit from Glencoe. I made the lacking air holes to the engine cowling and scratch build the windscreen. I should have modified the rudder a bit too. The decal sheet is luxurious with options to 7 different planes! Many of them more colourful than this one, but I sort of liked that 147th Squadron's terrier dog with the motto: "Who Said Rats?". There were two 'number tens' in the decal options and I could not figure out, whether this one also had a big black no '10' on the top wing. From other references I found out, that it did and I have added the decal later.