I'm a bit out of proportion on my thinking then. :doh:

I know how scale works and a 1:72 B-29 is going to be a lot bigger than a 1:72 WW1 bomber (or fighter? I don't know. Not too familiar with WW1 aircraft). :hmmm:

This thing just looked huge when I saw the wing...but now that I see a little bit more of it I can understand it now.

It'll be more clear when the pilots are in.

On the other hand they had some huge bombers - the Zeppelin Staaken was nearly as big as a B-29.

:o That's a big bomber for a WW1 era... I didn't think they got that big.

I've just googled it and saw a picture.

I wonder what kind of bomb load these things carried. I wouldn't think a whole lot since WW1 aircraft were like wood and cloth mostly ( IIRC ).

:hmmm:

The R.VI carried 2000 kilos of bombs (about 4400 pounds). The problem wasn't the construction (the Junkers J.I attack plane was not only made of metal but was armored) so much as the available power. The R.VI's top speed was only 84 mph.

I believe the wingspan was greater to compensate for the lack of thrust the early engines had...or how else could they fly? :)

AWRIGHT! The book just came! As I had hoped it not only has a wealth of detail including close-up pictures of survivors, but it has a good section on colors and markings. The French planes were mostly white, though there is a color photo of one that appears to be painted overall light tan. The Italians were either black or dark grey. They do have a B&W photo of one that apears to carry a mottle camoflage over a white finish. Their guess is some kind of green, and that's good enough for me. I know which one I'm doing now.

I don't know. They seem to have about the same power as others of the era. It was the first aircraft specifically designed to be a bomber, and the first version carried a 300-kilo bomb load, and 660 pounds of bombs is quite a bit. Whatever the reality was, they did indeed have a huge span.

Not bad!

I understand the Germans had some very good aircraft in WW1.

Everybody did. One side would come up with new technology and the other would capture one and apply it. Little by little they would outclass one another and hold control of the skies for a few months, then the other would come up with an even better machine. The war started with airplanes that were, as Rise Of Flight puts it, barely worthy of the name. By the end of the war metal monoplanes with steel framing were coming into use. Even the wooden ones were by that time dedicated fighting machines far beyond anything remotely imagined five years earlier.

In 1908 Wilbur Wright went to Reims with a machine that could fly at 40 miles per hour and stay aloft for almost an hour. In 1913 air races were being won in flying machines that could more than double that speed, and endurance records of several hours were set. In 1918 fighters were flying 140 mph and reconaissance aircraft were going so high that they took oxygen bottles with them just to breathe.

The old saying is true. Necessity truly is the mother of invention. Manned flight is only 110 years old, and look where we are now.

[edit] A side note: Wilbur Wright died of cancer in 1912. His brother Orville lived until 1948. The man who took to the air in a rickety machine that could barely get aloft lived to see the Second World War, the atomic bomb, and the coming of the Jet Age.

[edit 2] It took a little looking, but I found a copy of one of my favorite pictures: Orville Wright in the cockpit of a Lockheed Constellation in 1948, not long before his death.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psc1f64dcf.jpg

I bet he died a happy man. To see something you built in a shed evolve into jets and huge planes that can fly thousands of miles and drop nuclear bombs....

That would be one of the best feelings to know you had that much of an impact. You just have to think, what would he think of today's aircraft?

Underway again. Two hours of work saw the basic landing gear assembly completed. The struts had coil springs. Sometimes they were faired over and sometimes not. I thought of wrapping the struts with the same monofilament line I use for the rigging, but the plane I wanted to do had the fairings. I have some plastic strut stock I could have used, but it's too thin to drill a hole through lengthwise. I could have just drilled holes in the ends and mounted the wire that way, but it needs to be strong enough to withstand the rigors of gaming. I ended up using brass tubing, which is not airfoil shaped but looks better than nothing. The main wire goes all the way through, and bends to go another inch into the fuselage, making it very strong.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...38908098-1.jpg

so why did they lose?

The loss had nothing to do with the air war, which had almost no influence on the war itself. It was really a sideshow.

An interesting sideshow filled with interesting stories and equipment.

...that I know little about :oops: I'll do some reading eventually. It's on my list of things to read about.

This got me thinking, our school hired a new history teacher. I really hope he knows what he's doing.

Well, I decided I didn't like the way the tube over the wire looked. It either had to have the coil springs or it had to have the fairings. The tubes were glued on and removing them would have required ripping out the entire undercarriage assembly, which would probably cause irreparable damage to the body itself, so it had to be the fairings. I had already determined that the strut stock was too thin to drill out, and anyway I would also have to remove the tubes to try that route. I got to wondering what would happen if I sanded down the front part of the strut stock and glued the back part onto the tubes. I tried it and it worked okay until I put on a coat of primer. The joints between the tube and the fairing was very obvious. I tried using putty to fill the seams, but it didn't want to stick. I finally ended up using a paint brush and a fairly thick coat of gray paint. When it dried it had filled the seam nicely! I sanded it down and applied a second coat of paint on the seams, not so thick this time. These pictures were taken at that point. It looks like it's going to work quite well.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psd7533753.jpg

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps0f0b7cae.jpg

Mounting the upper wing was frustrating. Usually I'll paint the body and lower wing assembly, and then paint the upper wing before mounting. This is because the top of each wing might be one color and the bottom another, and the struts are bare wood. With the Voisin everything was painted the same color, so it was better to put it together first, then paint the whole thing.

I made the central cabane out of wire, since the real one was steel tube. I then cut some airfoil-shaped strut stock to the correct length and started checking alignment using some good 3-view drawings. I realized that the outer struts weren't looking right, so I looked at the pictures several times. Then I looked even closer and realized that the lower wing was shorter than the upper, but on the model they were the same length! Luckily the difference could be measured by the number of ribs on each wing. I only had to count in two ribs from each end, then cut the lower wing shorter and sand the front and rear to shape. The outer struts are angled, similar to the ones in the Caudron, but there is no vertical strut there as well. But the front view seems to show a vertical strut. But the photographs don't show it. Another half hour of study finally made me realize that the vertical "strut" that wasn't there was actually the connecting rod between the upper an lower ailerons. A little brass wire and that part was done as well. Another coat of primer and it's done for the night.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psa76a325a.jpg

Tomorrow will come the tail assembly and then the paint.

Tail assembly complete except for the elevators. I don't have any 3-color stripes big enough, so I'll have to paint those on. Once it's painted they'll go with the rest.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psa24cf908.jpg

Basic white.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps55d89a03.jpg

Stipple Camoflage applied, plus markings. It's supposed to have a number on the tail, but I couldn't find any the right size in my stuff boxes.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps5d5190a5.jpg

Engine mounted.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps9e8500fb.jpg

I still have the radiators, hoses wheels and pilots, plus some rather intricate rigging. I had hoped to have it done for tomorrow's game, but I'm not counting on it at this point. If not it will be done Friday.

Coming along nicely :cool:

I just found a little hobby store in town yesterday. I didn't know we had one.

Mainly, it's an RC Model Plane store. They also have a bunch of tools. Unless I start doing RC stuff like Nikimcbee I just see this as a tool place.

I know X-acto knives are good to get...is there anything else I should look for? :hmmm: