All done but the rigging. The kit didn't come with a gravity tank, and every single photograph shows one. I fabricated one out of a World War 2 drop tank. A little cutting, a little gluing, a little grinding, a little sanding...

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps5150a7a2.jpg

Shortening the lower wing and having only one set of struts meant that they added an extraordinary amount of rigging to give the plane strength. All that extra rigging has taken three days to install, but today it's finally done.

The BE.2e. I can see why they called it 'The Quirk'.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps7d0f0dcf.jpg
This picture also shows off the new set of British propeller logos I recently puchased. Markings are by Tibbenham Aviation Company.

This aircraft represents one that was forced down and captured by the Germans. The only photographs I know of were taken after the capture, and show iron crosses on the wheel covers, something I left off the model. The other markings represent squadron and personal markings, and they had three different pairs of those. The 'A' on the tail was a squadron marking, as was the stripe on the sides.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps5ccd2c4b.jpg

The BE.2e still had the observer in the front cockpit, giving him a limited range of fire. They did try different mountings, the most popular being a swiveling pintel which allowed the gun to move a little more freely and the gunner to look down the sights, a luxury not available on a regular pintel mount. In this case I chose to represent the "goalpost" mount, which allowed the gun to slide back and forth, which did help some.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps5d4e6d9f.jpg

This close-up shows the "star and crescent" marking on the engine cover, which I'm pretty sure was a personal marking, and the barely-visible clover, probably also a personal emblem.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps4a7a58a0.jpg

One of the oddities that made me want to do this version was the fact that the photos clearly show that the upper wing was bare linen rather than PC-10 paint, which indicates that the upper wing was damaged at some point and replaced with an older wing from when the entire plane was still CDL. Even more odd is that half the starboard aileron was apparently replaced again with one that was painted PC-10. This also indicates that the aileron came in two sections, something not mentioned in any of the sources I've seen.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps7e6355a5.jpg

I need to work on the rules for Thursday's game, so I probably won't be starting my next project until Friday.

Great rigging job! Any chance the Turks got hold of a British Captured aircraft which would explain the star and crescent for use in the Mesopotamia campaign?
Wikipedia- "By the end of 1915, two offices were established to govern Ottoman military aviation. The 13th Branch was part of the Ottoman General Staff; the 9th Branch was part of the Minister of War's office.
By 1916, the growing air force had 81 pilots and observers and about 90 airplanes. Eventually, Germany would transfer 460 airplanes to the Ottoman Empire; some 260 went to the Ottoman units and the rest remained in German units. Some 400 German aviation personnel served in Ottoman forces.
By the war's end, the Ottoman aviation squadrons had become a potpourri of about 200 supplied, purchased, and captured aircraft from Germany, France, Russia, and Britain. Even a general enumeration was overwhelming: seven types of Albatros; four types of Fokkers; three types of Gotha bombers; two types each of Rumpler and Caudron; plus LVG B series, Halberstadts, Pfalzes, Voisins, DeHavillands, Nieuports, a Bristol Bullet, a Farman, a Morane-Saulnier L Parasol, and a Grigorovich G.5." I suspect your rehabbed BE2e might be a Turkish loaner. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...aanse_Vlag.png:hmmm: http://www.ww1medals.net/tur%20aircraft%20wiki.jpg http://www.nzmr.org/foote/Fighter-Plane2.jpgthis BE2e for example was used by New Zealand forces in Palestine in 1917;

http://www.nzmr.org/aircraft/A02060_BE2.jpg And this BE2e was used in Gaza night bombing by Australians- all sides used each other's aircraft and the 'Quirk' was certainly in the Middle East. It was definitely not the aircraft of choice!

Probably not in this case. The first test conversion of a BE.2c to the new configuration was completed on February 14, 1916. 'C' and 'D' models were being converted prior to delivery in late May. This aircraft, 5836, was assigned to the RFC in France on June 26 and remained there until brought down in Germany on August 29.

Not there, not on the Western Front, not anywhere. :dead:

Nice model Steve. I've always like that general colour scheme and what a mess to rig!

Next project: Another Albatros C.III. I originally bid on one on eBay, then saw a different kit for a better 'Buy It Now' price. I bought the second one, expecting someone to outbid me for the first, at which point I would let it go. No one did, and I ended up with two. I built the first one as an early version, without the synchronized forward gun. This one will be a later version, with the pilot's gun and with very cool personal markings.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps006cbd1c.jpg

can't wait for this ONE!
 

Quote:

Sailor Steve: with very cool personal markings

The last war WITH very cool personal markings, IMHO very cool!http://www.earlyaeroplanes.com/buttons/furball_ia.GIF for some of us really old warbirdshttp://www.darwinsgamecloset.com/ima...fight19632.jpg Although he never flew the Albatross, #4 on the WWI list-tied with Voss- Josef Jacob, commander Jasta 7, certainly had 'interesting markings'...for anyone with Udo von D: 666 fallen angel proclivities :D http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazin...ker_dr1_04.jpg DRI#450/17 Whatever HIS religious affiliation insignia-wise, Jacobs was the last Pour Le Merite (BlueMax) winner to die in 1978-age 84>http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...sef_Jacobs.jpg Strangely, religion was a wide-open issue as Erhard Milch, Knight's Cross, of mixed Jewish ancestry, also commanded Jasta 7 and in WWII was a Generalfieldmarshall under Goering and Speer. One of the very few high ranking officers to serve with Jewish ancestry, He did time for war crimes.

Interior finished. This kit, from Meikraft, is very poorly designed. The dimensions all seem to be right, and the details look good, but everything is tied to the sprue with very thick connectors that have to be carefully trimmed and sanded to get rid of the huge lumps. Not fun at all.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps2b8ab0ba.jpg

Fuselage, tail assembly and lower wings in place.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps458bf34b.jpg

Hi Steve You Might find this interesting.

http://news.uk.msn.com/airworthy-ww1-planes-unveiled

Thanks for the link. That is way cool! :D

A flying Bristol Bullet! They mention it twice, but the second time it's accompanied by a picture of the SE.5a! :dead:

Even worse is their grammar: "It had a speed of up to 50mph, faster than any of the German Fokker Eindecker monoplanes." The comma makes it seem that the top speed was only 50 mph, which is about 30 mph slower than the eindeckers. The comma is very misleading. In another section they mention the M.1c's true top speed of 130 mph, which was indeed about 50 mph faster than the E.I.

Yes us English we can never speak the language the right way :D :up:
I have been lucky to see a few first and second world war aircraft flying overhead as its the Farnborough air show going on :up:

Landing gear assembled, first primer coat in place. The earlier C.III I did was pale blue over linen. This one reverts to the totally bare scheme of doped linen and varnished wood, so I used the linen color for the base coat rather than grey.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps3ca18c1d.jpg

I noticed that, but just figured that they forgot to put a 1 in front of the 50.

Gun ring installed and wood grain started. The kit didn't come with a gun ring, so I had to cut one out of sheet plastic, and sand it a bunch to get a good circle. The wood grain is going to take some sanding before it's ready, but it needs to be completely dry so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psb8d644ad.jpg

Normally I try to keep the best parts for last, but in this case the decals had to be applied before the upper wing went on. Back when I first accidentally ended up with two Albatros C.III kits, I found that the Meikraft kit had a really cool dragon decal for both sides of the airplane. I started doing some research and discovered that this was wrong. Originally there was only one photo of the plane, showing the starboard side with the cool dragon. It turns out that in 1996 the great aviation artist Bob Pearson had talked about doing a portrait of the airplane. He was contacted by a collector who informed him of the crocodile on the port side and shared his pictures.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.p...53328611448659

Other artists have since done profiles as well as action paintings. The plane belonged to Lt. Erwin Böhme and his observer, Lt. Lademacher (one post on the web says Lademacher's first name was Fritz, but there is no other source and the poster gives no reference). They served on the Eastern Front, in Kagohl 2, Kasta 10, Kavel Aerodrome, in early 1916.

Böhme was one of two pilots later asked to join Oswald Boelke's new Jasta 2. The other was Manfred von Richtofen. Böhme was 37 at the time. He and Boelke became best friends. It was Böhme who suffered the unfortunate collision that killed Boelke, and legend has it that it was von Richtofen who talked Böhme out of committing suicide over the affair.

There is some minor controversy over the colors of the 'Dragodile'. Some people feel it should be pale green, but Bob Pearson and Ray Rimell are both convinced the portraits were white. The main clue is the point where the animals meet the fuselage cross backgrounds. There is no observable difference between them, indicating that they are the same color, i.e. white. The final clue is from a letter that Erwin Böhme himself wrote to his fiancé, describing the plane. He called it "Schutzgeist", which translates to "guardian ghost", or "spirit". This may mean that it was white like a ghost, or it may mean nothing. Still, it's all there is.

Pearson did some drawings in both 1/72 and 1/48 scales, and I since nobody does an accurate decal I ended up printing the drawings onto decal paper. This is what I've been working towards ever since I did my own Morane and Pfalz logos. I first printed them onto regular paper and carefully cut them out. They were a little large for the model. Was Pearson's drawing out of scale? Was the model kit a bit too small? Probably the latter. It doesn't matter. I resized the drawing down about 10% and it was almost perfect, though the Dragon's legs were too long.

I printed the pictures onto the decal paper, and they looked great but when I transferred them they were clear, not white. I used my publishing/drawing program, PageStream, to add a white background, but they still came out clear. I traced an outline around the drawings and made it white, hoping to use it as a background. It also came out clear. My fourth attempt was to put the clear background onto the model and use its black outline as a guide, and just paint the white. Then I found I had some small white decal sheet. I printed the drawings onto that but they were a little blurry. I went ahead and put them on the model, let them dry thoroughly and then put the clear version on top. It came out pretty well.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psfc7a608d.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps54069419.jpg

I painted the tongues red daubing on the paint with very thin brass rod. I used the same method to touch up the edges with brown paint. I still need to fix the white backgrounds and to smooth out the paint so it doesn't look so lumpy in the pictures.

Pilots, guns and cabanes installed.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psf87e179e.jpg

Looks great :cool:

Upper wing and radiator mounted.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psb6c449c9.jpg