Star Spangled SPAD

Last weekend I wrote up my 2011 review. As I was posting that blog entry, I realized that I hadn't done a single WWI model last year. What?!?

Time to right that injustice. Fortunately, I had a project I really wanted to do. A few months back, I'd ordered away for some after-market decals for 94th Aero Squadron post-WWI showbird paint schemes. Captain Reed Chambers' "Stars and Stripes" scheme I found particularly eye-catching. These decals came from Mark's Models and Toys and were designed for the Eduard 1/72 late-model SPAD XIII.

There are a couple of photos of the original plane, from March 1919. Reed Chambers met with a fair bit of success during the war. He was credited with 6 enemy planes downed, as well as one balloon.

Each SPAD in the squadron was painted in its own unique and spectacular scheme. Marvelous!

As you can imagine, this project was an exercise in decal application. I sprayed the wings with Reaper Linen White (bright white, as a paint, did not come available until long after WWI). I started with the wing decals while closing up the fuselage and filling with GW's liquid green stuff.

There were chunks of the fuselage that needed to be painted in the same shade of blue that appears on the wing decals. I was able to get a pretty close match by mixing Vallejo French Blue with Pale Blue Grey. I masked and sprayed for the nose and tail plane.

Fuselage stripes and lots and lots of little star decals.

Presto!

Rigging was heated, stretched plastic sprue, painted metal.

Pilot figure was a resin piece I had in the parts box.

Even though this scheme was painted 5 months after the war, I'll have no reservation fielding this in our next Canvas Eagles game.

'Til next time.

Albatros D.V Builds: Part 5

After six weeks, I'm feeling...relieved. Sometimes, in the middle of a big project, I often think to myself, am I going to finish this? Well, I'm happy to say that 8 Albatros D.Vs are now "table-ready" for games of Canvas Eagles.

Let's start with an inspirational shot of Flashar letting another British flier wriggle away.

The final table shot. Here, landing gear is on, as well as the tail skids and propellers. All planes have been given a matt clear coat to finalize the finish. Now, all they need are pilots (oh, and rigging...but let's be real...I won't rig my game planes 'til I go insane in about 10 years).

Speaking of pilots...here they have been cut down to fit in the cockpits, primed and inked.

And here they are painted...pretty simple leather paint schemes.

Green Tails! The fliers of Jasta 5 were known as the green tails. Here are the five builds, representing planes from July 1917 through to March 1918. See part 1 of these build notes to get short bios of the various pilots.

Two planes from Jasta 12. I'm quite fond of the unit paint scheme. Very simple and sharp.

Finally, the single build from Jasta 79b. This is definitely my favorite of the eight.

A few times over the past six weeks, I felt myself getting bogged down in details; spending too much time on inconsequential areas. My mantra became, "Don't make them good...make them good enough." Examples? Neckel's Jasta 12 aircraft. The wings are lozenge covered. As such, I decalled over the location holes for the struts. The holes were very small, so in most cases I had to guess where to drill out the guide holes. For the right wing strut lower hole, I guessed wrong. This resulted in a wonky, badly angled interplane strut, which I realized after gluing and upper wing attachment. I wanted to tear the upper wing off, take the strut out and re-drill the location hole and patch the first hole. But this would have diverted building time and be a momentum-killer. The strut was "good enough"...heck, the wing was on, right? I left it.

However, on the whole, I have to say I'm very happy with the results. And happier that I can now move onto a new project.

Next up...a platoon of 28mm 101st Airborne troops for a WWII Carentan scenario.

'Til next time!

Albatros D.V Builds: Part 3

Well, I lost a week at the hobby table with a business trip down to Austin, and then a weekend with family in Calgary...but the crazy D.V build continues!

This past week I was able to finish off the lozenge wings of Neckel's Albatros and I've attached the Jasta 5 tail feathers. Those Eduard Jasta 5 "red piping" decals are hell to work with. So fussy. Anyway, lower wings are now glued on and I feel like I'm in the home stretch.

As I'm building these kits, I have to say that Sigmann's D.V is turning out to be my favorite. The markings are just spectacular.

Next up will be guns, struts, top wing attachments and landing gear.

On the subject of Canvas Eagles, we've been playing some more at the club, and I had an opportunity to get the triplanes out for a spin against some of Matt Robinson's campaign pilots.

Of special note is that Matt just finished off his resin Sopwith Dolphin kit and flew it at the club a few weeks back. A beautiful build, which you can just see climbing away from trouble with a couple of triplanes on his tail.

'Til next time.

Albatros D.V Builds: Part 2

The title of this week's build blog should be "All Rib Tapes, All The Time."

Most of my hobby time this week was spent working on the wings of Sigmann's D.V. I've stalled out on several WWI biplane projects in the past simply because I couldn't stand the tedium of applying rib tapes. However, I'm determined to get through this eight-plane build...two of which require rib taping...so I'm sucking it up and plowing through them.

I also got the fuselage markings onto the two Jasta 12 D.Vs.

So, the end of this week doesn't look very much different than the end of last week. This week coming up I'm down in Austin, so progress on these builds will be put on hold for about five days. No problem...I'm feeling pretty confident that I should be mostly done this project by the end of January.

'Til next time.

Albatros D.V Builds: Part 1

Hello 2010!

Well, a new bout of Canvas Eagles nuttiness is sweeping my hobby table into the New Year. Over the holidays, I started a pretty ambitious project: Eight 1/72 scale Albatros D.V fighters. I look at it this way...I just finished six Fokker Dr.Is; that's 18 wings of work. Eight Albatros fighters are only 16 wings of work...easy peasy...right?

Here the fuselage halves are awaiting glue, and the wings are base painted.


Fuselages are closed, puttied, sanded and base coated. For the eight builds, four have plywood fuselages, two are light grey, one is white and one is green.


Here, fuselage sections are matched with wings and tails...OK, now which eight builds am I doing anyway?


Time to work on a big-time unit. I chose to do a number of aircraft from Jasta 5, Germany's 3rd highest ranking wartime fighter unit. Jasta 5 accumulated 253 aerial victories and only lost 21 pilots in combat, killed and captured. Their Albatros fighters, from the summer of 1917 through to the spring of 1918, were some of the most fancifully decorated aircraft flying over the Western Front. Five of the eight builds will be from Jasta 5.


Build #1

The commanding officer of Jasta 5 through most of the Albatros period was Oberleutnant Richard Flashar. His dragon-marked D.V is well known and well documented. He flew this plane through the last half of 1917 and into 1918.


Unlike most German fighter units in the First World War, the commanding officer of Jasta 5 was not their most prolific scorer. In fact, Flashar ended with war with only 2 victories. However, his fame comes from the fact that he scored Germany's first aerial combat victory of the war, back in 1914. He downed a French aircraft with a shotgun.


Build #2

On the other hand, Leutnant Fritz Rumey was Jasta 5's most prolific aerial fighter, scoring all 45 of his wartime victories with the squadron. He flew several different Albatros fighters...this one was known to be active in the Spring of 1918.


Rumey was wounded twice in 1918, and was eventually shot down on September 27th. He bailed out of his Fokker D.VII, but his parachute failed to deploy. He fell to his death.


Build #3

Paul Baumer was a very successful fighter pilot with three of his 43 victories scored with Jasta 5 in July, 1917. He was then transfered to Jasta 2, where he remained for the rest of the war. There has been much debate over the colors used on Baumer's fuselage. This rendering shows the edelweiss flower painted over a background of darker red. Some think the darker band might have been black. I chose black for this build.


Baumer became a dentist after the war, but he also worked as a stunt pilot and eventually he had his own aircraft manufacturing company based in Hamburg. During an aerobatic display in Copenhagen in 1927, Baumer crashed his plane and was killed.


Doesn't he look like Tony Curtis?


Build #4

Otto Konnecke scored 33 of his 35 victories with Jasta 5, from May '17 through to the end of the war. He flew several green Albatros fighters during his time with the squadron.


Here Konnecke (second from left) poses with his ground crew in front of one of his green Albatros D.Vs.


Otto Konnecke survived the war. He became a pilot with Lufthansa in 1926 and was a commander of flying schools during the Second World War. He lived in Germany after the war and eventually passed away in 1956.


Build #5

Ah, an unidentified Jasta 5 plane with an unknown pilot. However, I couldn't resist doing this very simple paint scheme...particularly since I had a red fuselage band decal from another kit I could use! This aircraft was recorded as being active in the squadron over the winter of '17/'18.


Build #6

OK, time to leave Jasta 5 and move on to two builds from Jasta 12...again, these would be aircraft flown in late 1917 and early 1918.

The first is flown by Leutnant Ulrich Neckel. He scored 20 of his 30 victories with Jasta 12.


Ulrich Neckel eventually went on to command Jasta 6 and received the second-last "Blue Max" medal to be awarded...just three days before the end of the war. Ten years later, in 1928, he died from tuberculosis in Italy.


Build #7

This is another documented Jasta 12 Albatros. Unfortunately, we don't know the name of the pilot who few this fighter marked with the stylized Star of David.


Build #8

For the final build, I decided to do this very striking late-war Albatros D.Va from Bavarian Jasta 78. This squadron was small and obscure, producing no pilots of renown. However, one has to admit that the unit markings were very beautiful. This plane was flown by Vizefeldwebel Michael Sigmann.


Sigmann, seen here in flying kit, scored no aerial victories. He was wounded in the arm during combat in August, 1918 but was able to land safely and survive the war.


Well, the holidays are drawing to a close and work on these models will start to slow down now. Here is the current state of the builds. Most of the planes should be recognizable at this point. I still have some more fuselage and wing decaling to do, but most of the heavy lifting is behind me. Up next is final component painting, strut work and then assembly.


'Til next time.

Fokker Triplane Build: Part 3

For the first time in a few weeks, I'm feeling like there is light at the end of the tunnel.

The five Jasta 19 triplanes, and Kirschstein's Jasta 6 machine are starting to take shape.

This past week has been mayhem...the hobby table has been a jumble of wings, tailplanes and half-painted fuselages. At this stage I was prepping the fuselage cross fields. Jasta 19 overpainted their iron crosses to make these markings blend in with the surrounding camouflage fabric, and create an even background for the individual pilot markings.

Here, I'm just starting to work on Krischstein's fuselage bands.

At the end of this week you can see that all the major decaling work is done...and there was a lot of it! Final assembly over the coming week, and then these six Canvas Eagles miniatures should be ready for the game table.

'Til next time!

Fokker Triplane Build: Part 1

And now...onto the Jasta 19 Fokker Dr.I build.


As I've been threatening, I'm now starting into a build of five Fokker Triplanes for our Canvas Eagles games. I'm using Eduard 1/72 scale kits with Gunsight Graphics streak painting decals and the Pheon Models transfer sheet for the individual plane markings.


Why Jasta 19? Well, first of all, their markings in late March/early April 1918 were stark, and quite beautiful. They'll be easy to identify and differentiate on the game table.



Second, this was a work-a-day unit. It wasn't stacked full of celebrated pilots who were tearing up the skies of France. In fact, the unit was struggling in early 1918. I guess I'm a sucker for the also-rans! Be that as it may, as the last big German offensive of the war was getting underway (Operation Michael, March 21, 1918), Jasta 19 was one of four squadrons constituting Jagdgeschwader II, another fighter wing patterned after Manfred von Richthofen's very successful Jagdgeschwader I.


I have three of the required five kits on the hobby table...still waiting on the mail for the last two. However, the major components are prepped and I've started into the painting and wing decaling.



This is a flight line shot of Jasta 19 aircraft in April 1918. The first three planes you can see here will be included in this build.



In late March and early April, Jasta 19's leader was Leutnant Walter Gottsch. He was fated to be shot down on April 10th, 1918, just as the Jasta was starting to come into its own. His final victory total was 20 enemy aircraft. He was credited with 3 victories in this build's swastika-marked triplane before he was killed in action.



As I mentioned, Jasta 19 was a somewhat under-performing unit. JG II's new commanding officer, Rudolf Berthold, sent his own man to the squadron in order to give them a kick-start. This pilot was Leutnant Arthur Rahn. Rahn scored twice in his diamond-banded triplane. He was wounded on July 17 and finished the war with a total of 6 victories.



Leutnant Rudolf Rienau spent most of his flying career with Jasta 19. He scored once in his striped-fuselage triplane in early March, and then ran up his tally to 6 (flying a Fokker D.VII) towards the end of the war. He was shot down on September 13th 1918, but was saved by his parachute. He was killed in a flying accident in 1925.



Leutnant Hans Korner scored once in his zig-zag marked Jasta 19 triplane on the last day of March, 1918. He survived the war with a final victory total of 7. He remained in aviation after the war, but was killed in a motorcycle accident on the way to his airfield.



Back to the builds...


So I've tried to simulate Fokker paint streaks on models before. And while I was pretty satisfied with the result, it took f-o-r-e-v-e-r. This time around, I've decided to go with decals for the base paint scheme.



Here are three sets of wings with the decals applied (except for the upper wing ailerons).



Pheon Models supplies a lot of source information for their decal sheet. Here you can see the guidelines for Rahn, Gottsch, Korner and Rienau's machines.



Now, of course, this is a five plane build. So...which is the fifth plane? Well, as you may know, many German records were lost or destroyed at the end of the first and second world wars. As such, our knowledge of all pilots and aircraft is incomplete. Now, what we do know is that there was a Jasta 19 pilot known as Vizefeldwebel Gerdes. He scored a single victory with the squadron on March 16th, 1918. (Sorry, no pilot photo.) We also know the following triplane flew for Jasta 19 at that time, but it's pilot was unknown. Unknown pilot...unknown plane. I dub this Gerdes' triplane! It will be the fifth and final plane of this flight.



Some plan views of this build.



OK, hopefully the last couple of models come in and I can move this build forward.