Next Project: A Twofer - a pair of Nieuport N.10s. All of Nieport's early planes were low-wing monoplanes. A handful of N.IVs went with the Italian army to Libya in 1911 along with some Bleriot XIs. In 1914 the N.VI and N.X were among the planes doing reconnaissance for the French Armee de l'Aire. Nieuport took the N.X airframe and rebuilt it as a biplane, naming it the N.10b. These were further subdivided into the N.10 AV (observer in the front) and N.10 AR (observer in the rear). In both cases the only gun was mounted to the upper wing, and the observer had to stand to fire it. In the case of the AV there was a hole in the top wing for the observer to brace himself while shooting. The N.10b would eventually have the more conventional arrangement of the observer in the rear, with a rearward-firing gun mounted on a ring, but not until much later.
The kit comes with separate wing center sections, so the AV is an option, and one I couldn't pass up.
It didn't take long before pilots figured out that they could sit in the rear cockpit and fire the gun straight ahead, and the N.10c1, the first Nieuport single-seat fighter, was born. The second kit will represent the Chasseur, or fighter version.
Nieuport 10s were used by France, Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, Belgium, Finland and Serbia.