Steve's Models

[Sailor Steve]

When I put it on a stand to show it off at last Thursday's game, one of my fellow gamers stared at it for a bit and then said

"No. Just...no."

[Aktungbby]

Well he was just stunned as we are: All your stuff reflect a certain scrupulous dedication; this particular one just exceeds your usual efforts. All that wire and the little shell bags on the guns.... I particularly like this 'stringbag' shot the best:

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Four months and eight days. Eighteen weeks and two days. One hundred and twenty-eight days. Too many distractions. Too much procrastinating. It should have taken four weeks tops.

But it's done. That's all I have to say. The rest can speak for itself.










The guns are brass kits I ordered from a shop in the Ukraine. Very fine details. The front and rear sights are etched brass (very tiny, and they offer three different rear sights). The canvas shell bags (to keep spent cartridges from going into the propeller) are thick plastic. The wrinkles were made by squeezing them with a pair of pliers.


I broke out the game stand to get some "in flight" shots (also some better angles).













Tomorrow I need to repair some broken models so I can use them again.

Man, it must have been a wild ride as the gunner. This model is awesome! Whole thread with links gives me new found appreciation for the type.

[Sailor Steve]

Cabanes mounted, top wing cut, sanded and ready. It's not glued on yet, it's just sitting there to test the angles and make sure they're straight. Tomorrow should see it painted, and then the top wing will go on for real.

[iambecomelife]

Man, this brings back memories from "Red Baron 3D"... The FE2b's were easy meat for my Albatros....give them a few good bursts and they'd catch fire or suffer structural failure....these boys earned me lots of medals.

[Sailor Steve]

On the other hand there was Manfred. It was a Fee that gave him the head wound that marked the beginning of the end. But you're right. On the whole they were a pretty average stopgap until the Allies got some real fighters.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

Wish I'd checked on this thread before...I'm a big fan of pusher planes so obviously I'm in heaven. Although I don't think their crews liked them very much.

Why didn't the crews like them?

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by TorpX

Why didn't the crews like them?

They were slow, vulnerable, and the gunner had a very poor field of fire compared to other two seaters like the DH.4 and the Bristol F2B.

[CCIP]

To be fair, as Steve mentioned, it pre-dated both of those by a long shot. So there wasn't really a lot of choice as far as two-seaters go - well, for the Brits, it was either basically that or the BE2, and I know which one of them I'd rather be in if I got attacked by a German

But I think it speaks volumes of the aircrews' courage that they kept going out there and fighting all along, even in machines that they full-well knew were problematic and inferior to the enemy's.

[Aktungbby]

^ INDEED! "
The arrangement was described by Frederick Libby, an American ace who served as an F.E.2b observer in 1916:

"When you stood up to shoot, all of you from the knees up was exposed to the elements. There was no belt to hold you. Only your grip on the gun and the sides of the nacelle stood between you and eternity. Toward the front of the nacelle was a hollow steel rod with a swivel mount to which the gun was anchored. This gun covered a huge field of fire forward. Between the observer and the pilot a second gun was mounted, for firing over the F.E.2b's upper wing to protect the aircraft from rear attack ... Adjusting and shooting this gun required that you stand right up out of the nacelle with your feet on the nacelle coaming. You had nothing to worry about except being blown out of the aircraft by the blast of air or tossed out bodily if the pilot made a wrong move. There were no parachutes and no belts. No wonder they needed observers."

And additionally by the son of one lucky pilot!
Arthur William Martin, a Royal Flying Corps bomber pilot, was shot down and captured by the enemy but survived. His son wrote:
Anthony Martin, of Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, recalls the moment his pilot father met the German who shot him down then helped him contact his family to say he was safe. ‘‘My father, Arthur William Martin (pictured above), was a Royal Flying Corps bomber pilot who was shot down over enemy territory in 1916 but survived where so many other pilots did not. Born in London in 1893, he joined the 2nd/5th Yorkshire Regiment and was commissioned on July 19, 1915. He was a gunnery officer and married my mother in September 1916 just before being sent to France. ‘‘Shortly after arrival, he was briefed on a bombing mission over enemy territory. He was piloting an FE2b ‘pusher’ and his gunner, sitting in front of him, was supposed to place his feet on the narrow edge of the front cockpit and fire the backward-facing Lewis machine gun fixed on the top wing. My father’s gunner was taken ill and a sergeant machine-gunner was taken out of the front line to join him. Understandably, the poor fellow was terrified.
‘‘Over enemy territory, the flight became separated in cloud and, coming out of it, my father was attacked by three German fighters. The gunner was too frightened to get up and fire the gun. The bullets passed through the main tank without setting it on fire, sliced through my father’s flying coat from his groin to his feet but missed his vital organs. The bullets cut all his flying cables except his landing wires.
‘‘My father dived and, seeing a green field, made an emergency landing, only to find it was an enemy airfield. The German officer who shot him down landed behind him and took my father to his mess.
‘‘Discovering he was recently married, the officer told him to write a note to my mother saying that he was a prisoner of war but uninjured. The German then put his note into a canister and dropped it over our lines. This courteous act resulted in my mother receiving his note a few weeks later. After a few months, she had an official notification from the War Office to say that my father was missing in action and presumed dead.
‘‘My father was a prisoner for two years, during which time he learnt German so well that he ended up teaching it to other prisoners.’’

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

INDEED!

Nice description.

Here are a series of RFC photos demonstrating the different positions.

[Sailor Steve]

Paint applied. What would rapidly become the RFC standard: Clear Doped Linen below and PC10 above.

[Aktungbby]

Cecil Lewis, author, Sagittarius Rising,( the inspiration for movie Aces High) who ferried a B.E.12 to France, thought it was "nothing but a higher-powered single-seater B.E.2c armed with a forward-firing Vickers gun. The front seat had been taken out to make room for the new 140-h.p. R.A.F. engine. . . It really was a cow. The engine gave full revs and full power while sounding as if there was something radically wrong with it. The four-bladed propeller seemed to increase the vibration. It was a lovely day and I crossed the Channel high up, glad of the height, for full out or throttled back the engine rattled like a can of old nails. I was glad enough to put it down at the depot, saying fervently to the group of pilots who gathered round the newcomer, 'You can have it. That's one I don't want to see again.'" Lewis died at age 98 served in two world wars and scored 8 victories (SE-5) on the Somme, awarded the Military Cross...we'll take his assessment as gospel on this BBY.

[Sailor Steve]

"I have come to the conclusion that the BE12 aeroplane is not a fighting machine in any way...

I have, as you know, always objected to the machine from the beginning when I heard it was being made, and I would point out as the manufacture of them was continued that when it came to my deciding whether I would have them or nothing else I could not possibly say I would rather be without them then. But I am afraid now it is a question of not being able to afford the losses the use of them entails.

I realize fully that I shall lose two squadrons if I stop using the BE12 and delay, I suppose for some considerable period, two other squadrons. Although I am short of machines to do the work that is now necessary with the large number of Germans against us, I cannot do anything else but to recommend that no more be sent out to this country."
-Brigadier General Hugh Trenchard, commanding the Royal Flying Corps in France, Memorandum dated September 24, 1916

Yes, the man in charge of all the British flyers in France wrote in an official note to his superiors that he would rather have four squadrons grounded than to keep putting up in this particular aeroplane.

[Sailor Steve]

Second coat of paint, Vickers gun mounted. Of course they put it where the pilot couldn't reach it if it jammed...