Steve's Models

[Sailor Steve]

Four days later the decal stripes came, several widths from very narrow to vary wide. New problem - the very narrow ones are still too wide. Solution - the one I should have come up with long ago: Make my own! I used my publishing program to make stripes in both black and brown, and printed them onto one of the blank decal sheets I bought. The top of the wing is finished, less a little trimming and cleaning up the black paint I somehow managed to smear. The fuselage markings are some of the wider strips from the sheet I bought.

[Sailor Steve]

Markings applied and smears cleaned up. I also spent a lot of time putting the stripes on the underside of the wing, something I didn't get done yesterday.

[Jimbuna]

I've a strong feeling this model will be well worth the effort when it is completed

[Sailor Steve]

Pfalz E.III.

Identical to the Morane 'L' except for the markings.


While there were a handful that came from the factory armed, most of them were converted from existing A.IIs. No personal markings, no serial numbers.


I couldn't get the decals to work for the edging, so I had to resort to pens. Still a little rough in extreme closeup, holding it your hand you can't tell.


Better than the French original for having a synchronized belt-fed gun.


Propeller by Garuda.

[Buddahaid]

Now that looks scary.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

Now that looks scary.

To be up in one or to have one on your tail?

[Buddahaid]

To be up in one. It's damned near a parasol and just when will the wing give?

[Sailor Steve]

It is a parasol, and I think they were pretty well braced. I looked through the Datafiles on both the Morane and Pfalz versions, and couldn't find any instances of one coming apart in the air, with the exception of the result of battle damage. On the other hand, and to my great surprise, I did find that at least one pilot was killed after going into a spin. I would have thought the parasol design to be inherently stable, but apparently if you did manage to spin one they were exceeding difficult to recover. That trait was shared by most wing-warpers, the Fokker eindekkers being the notable exception.

[Sailor Steve]

Next I'll be backtracking a little bit. After building the Pfalz E.I I started re-thinking my next kit. I built a Morane 'H' many years a go by converting a Revell eindekker kit. I didn't know too much about the subject and was unaware of how much longer the Fokker was than the Morane and Pfalz versions. I was aware that AZ Models also made the Morane 'G' and 'H', and the Pfalz E.I, the difference again being the box and decals. I was thinking of building another Pfalz because of some markings I like, but they are a bit on the pricey side. I found a Morane kit for a very good price. When it came I found out why: The previous owner had already cut some of it apart. The 'G' was a two-seater and had slightly longer wings, and the sections had already been removed. No problem there, as I planned to do the same myself.

[Sailor Steve]

Ready for paint.

[Sailor Steve]

Almost done. Tonight I play music, tomorrow is the final details and rigging.

[Sailor Steve]

I dug the Pfalz out to help as a rigging guide. Got it 3/4 done and found I'd drilled two of the holes in the wrong place. Ripped it all apart and started over. Didn't have time left for the detail painting, and the pilot's not in yet. Took a side-by-side photo and then found you can't see the rigging on the Morane.

Too bad. It will show up in the final pictures.

[Sailor Steve]

Morane 'H'. I did the British version solely because I like the rudder with the serial number but no national colors. This means it has the Lewis gun rather than the Hotchkiss. It still has to use deflector plates as no Allied service had a synchronizer yet.


I was running short of pilots, and I found that there are not very many available. I bought a set of 48 WWI 'pilots', knowing that the set was mostly ground crew and other standing figures, but I figured 12 seated pilots would be enough for now, and the price wasn't too bad. It turned out that one of the seated figures was actually a cavalry officer, so now there are 10 pilots. They are all in interesting poses, though, and rather than a combat pose this one appears to be leaning against the side of the cockpit looking at something (or talking to someone).


The pilot doesn't show up real well in close-up, but you get the idea.


Again the seven-cylinder 80-horsepower Gnome Monosoupape engine.

[Sailor Steve]

Next Project: The Bristol Scout. There were four models - A, B, C and D, and the C/D were the best of the early British conversions, putting a gun on a racing plane. They were fast and maneuverable, being more than a match for the eindekkers. Originally designed as an unarmed scout, meant for the pilot to fly into enemy territory and mark enemy troop positions on a map, the plane was limited by the wingtop Lewis gun mount, which required a lot of effort to change the drum (and it had to be changed every two or three bursts), and by the fact that only 80 Scout Cs and 210 Scout Ds were built. This is roughly the same number as the German eindekkers, but armed scouts came months later and better planes were soon available.

The model is available in several forms, and can build any Scout made. This one gives markings for early RNAS aircraft, which is why I chose it.

[Sailor Steve]

The kit has a very nice set of parts for the interior. The floorboard, seat and rudder pedals are standard plastic, the 'wood and wire' framing on the side and the joystick are etched brass. The 'above' shots were all blurry, so you can't see the leather seat cushion, but the pilot will be blocking that anyway. They also include seat belts, but that only works with a "parked" airplane.


The instrument panel is a lovely little three-piece assembly. The backing is plastic, the instruments are printed on a clear plastic sheet, and the panel on top of it is etched brass. The whole thing glued together nicely and for the finishing touch I used some Micro Krystal-Klear for the glass bezels. I took about eight pictures just to get the two I used.