Brilliant job Steve!

There used to be an Albatros C.III (the last one!) in New Zealand, before the people in charge of the museum had it burnt :o

I have a sudden hatred for people who run museums in New Zealand. :nope:

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!!!!!

Was that the one based at the Omaka Aviation Museum?

Finally ready to get started on the next one: An Aviatik B.II, another "unarmed" two-seater, this time Austro-Hungarian. These early aircraft were technically unarmed, the observer carrying a rifle or carbine. If they were fitted with a machine gun the observer was still in the front cockpit, so he had to fire over the pilot's head.

I still haven't found the compressor, but everything else is in place, and since this is another vac kit I have a lot of cutting and sanding ahead anyway.

The Kit
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps49789733.jpg

Hooray for the Austro-Hungarians! :woot:

Fuselage halves cut and sanded, interior assembled, lower wings cut and sanded.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps531aa919.jpg

Working at a fair pace Steve :cool:

A quote from the 'What are you doing now' thread.
I just remembered a funny story from a couple of decades ago. I may have already told it. I hope not.

It was in the 1990s that Acadamy came out with the first P-40B kit. Prior to that there may have been a vac conversion kit, but we converted ours manually. When the kit came out Rocky and I noticed a couple in a local shop. We immediately went to the owner and told him we would take what he had, and wanted to special order twenty of them, ten each.

"Ten?", he asked, "Why?"

"We use them for an airwar game. I need one for Flying Tigers, one for US Pacific, one for British, one for British North Africa and one for Russian."

"That's five," he said. "Why ten?"

"They never went out alone. I need to provide planes for my wingmen, too."

"Okay, that's ten. Why twenty?"

Rocky immediately said "What if Steve doesn't show up one night?"




I still have seven of them sitting on my shelf right now.

In case you missed it Steve you just hit 10,000 views on this thread. :up:

Oh and I noticed you work with vacumeform kits. I got one of a Su-7 sitting on my shelf but never had the guts to try and build it. :)

No, I didn't. I look every now and then, but somehow I missed that one. :oops:

If you've built regular plastic models, vac kits aren't really that much different. Score the plastic along the edges and gently break out the pieces, then sand them until they're flush. There's more work involved because of that, and you have to be careful, but if you are careful it can be a fairly straightforward job.

On the other hand there are so many great kits out there now that vacs are falling by the wayside. A good modern plastic kit can already have so much detail that you don't really need to add anything. A vac can leave you scrambling for plastic wheels and other parts. The upside is that a lot of vacs come with plastic, resin or metal wheels and struts that are better than some of the 'regular' kits.

FUN 'N' GAMES, or problems with OCD.

I keep looking at the main reference for the Aviatik B.II, which is the Windsock Datafile booklet on the subject. They talk mostly about the prototypes and very little about actual production models. There are no pictures at all of the one I want to build. I found a few random photos online, but not many. I then looked at Wiki, of all places, and got the answer I was looking for. Aviatik was not an Austrian company, but a German one. That's why the Datafile didn't cover them - it's only about the German models. They opened a new factory in Austria, the Österreichisch-Ungarische Flugzeugfabrik Aviatik, which made the plane I'm trying to model. Still, there are no pictures I could find of the particular plane I want to build.

The kit comes with a nice metal top-half to the engine. The fuselage has a full cowling. I cut away the cowling and kept fiddling with it until the engine top fits in perfectly, then thought that maybe 32.19 had the full cowling. Too late to change it now. Then I remembered that in the summer they removed the cowlings for better cooling, at least according to sources on the Austrian Albatros.

The problem isn't the airplane, and it isn't the model. The problem, as I've been told many times, is that I think too much. As Bruce Lee said in one of his movies, "Don't think. Feeeeel."

Anyway, the fuselage is done, the lower wings are mounted and drying. Upper wing and primer coat (and likely much puttying and sanding) tomorrow.

Fuselage and wings painted, ready for assembly.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psafd6b30c.jpg

Coming along nicely Steve :cool:

I seem to have fallen behind myself. Monday I had a lot of errands, and when I was done I was done in. No energy left at all. Yesterday I had some more things to do, so I didn't get back to the model until early in the evening. I ran into the same problem I had with the Albatros, namely that the upper wing is two pieces rather than one, and both mount to the central cabane. If the cabane is crooked, so is the wing.

The cabane was crooked. I tried adjusting it. No joy. I tried mounting the wings straight on the crooked cabane. There was a noticable gap on both sides. during the process I managed to jab my finger with the X-Acto knife. It didn't hurt much but it kept trying to bleed on the model. I finally ended up ripping the whole thing off and setting it aside.

This morning I started again. Mount the cabane struts to the fuselage. Glue the top piece, but only on one end. Place both wings. They're crooked, but the top piece is now semi-adjustable. Keep fiddling with it until the wings are straight. Glue the other end of the top piece. Glue the wings on. The struts aren't glued yet, but at least the wing is mounted. Three days behind schedule.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps449cbbda.jpg

All done except for paint, decals and rigging.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps37e916ba.jpg

I don't know much about WWI aircraft so what is that squarish object above the engine?

It looks like it is right in the pilot's field of view. :o

It's the radiator. Not only is it right in his line of sight, if it takes a hit the scalding water will blow right in his face. No, not in his face. Maybe that's why they put the observer in front.

The fuel tank is also right over his head, suspended from the upper wing. No fuel pump, so gravity feed is a necessity.

Many of the early planes had radiators mounted on the side. See the AEG on page 4. The problem there is that a hit will drain it in seconds, since it's below the engine. Albatros, tried that with their first fighters, then moved it to the upper wing, where it could empty right into the pilot's face. Finally they moved it a couple of feet to the right. The Fokker D-VII, like the SPAD and SE.5a, has the radiator mounted to the front of the engine, right behind the propeller and out in the slipstream. If it takes a hit the water blows onto the engine.

I'll have close-ups when it's done.

Well, it's been eight days since I painted the national markings and put the decals on, and I haven't touched it since. I've looked at it a bunch of times, but just haven't had the will to get the job done. I've done a huge amount of research into my next project, but I won't start that until this one's in the bag.

Yesterday I decided to take it to the game unfinished. Halfway to the suitcases I dropped it. Luckily nothing serious broke, but one of the wheels popped off and though I searched high and low I couldn't find it. I have a new pair of wheels set aside for mounting and painting, but first I have to go to the hobby shop to buy some more brass wire of the appropriate diameter, and I'll probably make that part of tomorrow's errands.

Someday it will be finished.

Maybe. :dead:

At long last love! It's fnally done and ready for the game stand, not that I've actually used any of my new planes yet. Since they are all from the same period it's likely that the one with the best performance will get used and the others never will. Still, I like building and it's nice to have them.

The Austrian Aviatik B.II:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps09e32a65.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psf6f90234.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps066a0430.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psa44d1b4c.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps83c389b5.jpg

That's one cool looking bird Steve :cool: