Academy 1/72 Sopwith Camel

Academy kit 1624

Purchased: Hobby One, Brisbane. $AUD 4.50
Completed: 13 January 2007

• Nation: United Kingdom
• Era: 1910-1919
• Justification: The only other contender for this place in the collection was the SE5a. I chose the Camel because of its unmatched service record (1,294 enemy aircraft destroyed) and its place in popular culture, but really, there wasn't much to choose between them. The easy availability of Camel kits didn't hurt either.

The kit

The first thing I noticed when I opened the box was the unconventional way that Academy provided the struts - parallelograms that included the struts themselves as well as a section of the wing surface above and below. I knew I'd seen this before, and recalled an Esci SE5a I'd built years ago. Sure enough, a quick Google turned up this photo of Esci's Camel kit, showing an identical parts breakdown. This is unsurprising since in Academy's early period their releases seemed to show generous "inspiration" from other manufacturers' products.

The kit itself comprises about 20 parts, nicely moulded, if very simplified. My example had only the tiniest traces of flash, and then only around one of the undercarriage struts. My first impression was that the ribbing detail on the wings was too heavy-handed, but when compared to photos of the real aircraft such as this, I revised my opinion somewhat - it's not truly to scale, but it does convey a sense of the real thing. The biggest flaw with the actual moulding is the placement of a number of prominent ejector-pin marks: two each on the lower surface of the top wing, on one surface of the (symmetrical) horizontal stabiliser, and, most vexingly, on the top surface of the lower wing. To add insult to injury, one of the blemishes on the lower wing actually goes right through a rib.

The level of detail is very low. The cockpit is simply a hole in the top of the fuselage with a nondescript step moulded into it to provide some idea of a seat. The twin Vickers guns are plain sticks, and the engine is moulded integrally with the front of the cowling and is represented only by nine pairs of well-defined and crisp pushrod covers! At least the cylinders in the 6 o'clock position are provided on the back of the cowling (albeit as shapeless blobs), so that when viewed from underneath there's something other than void in the big gap at the bottom of the Camel's cowling. The tail skid doesn't resemble anything I saw on any of the photos of Camels I've found on line, and I'm guessing is simply wrong. Finally, I'm confident that on real Sopwith Camels, the length of the two propeller blades is equal, quite unlike the propeller in this kit (a 3 mm difference - very visible).

Decals are provided for one aircraft - B6299 of B flight, No 10 Squadron, RNAS, with the distinctive, red-and-white striped cowling of that unit. While very thick and glossy, at least the decals are in perfect register and quite opaque. I don't know enough about the subject to say for sure, but my impression is that at least the upper wing and fuselage roundels should have a thin white border to them, which Academy missed although they are present on the Esci sheet (representing the same aircraft). Likewise, Academy omitted the large "B" markings for the wings and tail, even though they are shown on the model photographed for the box art (an Esci kit?)

The build

Construction

For the most part, assembly was quick and easy, and with the tiny part count, there's not much more to say other than the fit was generally very good. The worst problem early on was the joint between the lower wings and the fuselage, which I fixed by gluing in a shim cut from 0.5 mm sheet styrene (see right). The only putty I used was around this area, apart from filling in the ejector pin marks. I sliced off the tail skid and replaced it with a short section of straight rod. The biggest construction problem was with the struts - while the way they're provided makes assembly very easy, blending in the segment of the wing that's moulded together with them into the rest of the surface of the wing is a formidable challenge. In the end, I made things fit as best I could, but didn't do too much about them. Unfortunately, these remain a highly-visible flaw in my completed model.

Painting

I decided early on that I didn't want to use the highly-distinctive markings provided with the kit, opting for a more generic aircraft instead. Throughout the build, I'd been relying on photos of F6314 in the RAF Museum, and realised that this was a perfect match for the Camel I see in my mind's eye - Khaki upper, plain linen under, and a bare metal cowling. This aircraft currently shows markings for 65 Sqn, and I noted a reference on a web forum that pointed out that this aircraft never flew with that squadron. When further internet research failed to show up details of a more authentically-marked Camel in the same generic scheme (or for that matter, whether F6314's markings were authentic after all), I decided that what's good enough for the RAF Museum was good enough for my little collection too, and chose to use this scheme.

I mixed up a plain linen colour from Tamiya Buff XF-57 and Flat White XF-2 in about even proportions. For the upper surfaces, web research taught me that the exact shade of the PC10 dope used is open to conjecture and debate, and seems to have changed during the duration of the war. I was most persuaded by the arguments that it was on the browner end of brownish-green, and since this is the apparent colour of the aircraft I chose to model, I mixed up something like it from Tamiya Khaki Drab XF-51 and Flat Earth XF-52 in about a 2:1 ratio. Lastly, the plain wooden parts including the struts and the "doghouse" around the cockpit were brush-painted in Flat Earth and the cowling was brush-painted in Flat Aluminium XF-16.

Decals

The Academy decals provided a very frustrating experience. They parted company with their backing sheet almost as soon as they hit the water, alerting me that there probably wasn't any adhesive behind them to speak of. I was right. Even with Mr Mark Setter applied, they didn't want to stick. They also proved practically impervious to Mr Mark Softer. It took repeated applications to get them eventually to lie down. Apart from the missing white outlines to the roundels, I'm also conscious that my model is missing the black serial number from the rear fuselage. Before I cleaned out the paint jar containing my linen mixture, I painted some of this onto some of the leftovers on the decal sheet. I hope to later come back to this model and apply plain linen patches from this, once I have some small enough numbers and letters in the spares box!

Rigging and final assembly

Esci's strut design made rigging comparatively easy. I was able to attach the rigging between the mainplane struts and the cabane struts even before attaching them to the model (right). I was surprised that I couldn't find a rigging diagram of a Sopwith Camel online - but by looking long enough at museum photos, I think I figured most of it out.

 I eventually decided on a slightly simplified version, omitting the control wires (since there are no control horns provided on the kit anyway) and, at least for the time being, the tailplane rigging, since my preferred rigging method (superglue and smoke-coloured mending thread) doesn't lend itself very easily to rigging from flat surface to flat surface, and I was admittedly not foresighted enough to drill the required holes before starting assembly. One hole that I wished that I had drilled was at the junction between the fuselage and the lower wing, near the point where the rear main undercarriage strut meets. This would have made it far far easier to attach the wire that needs to run from this point to the top of the aft mainplane strut. I also omitted the wire that runs vertically from the top of the axle assembly to the underside of the fuselage, and simplified the mainplane rigging by only using one wire instead of the double-wires on the original.

With my "keep it simple" strategy in mind, I had originally decided to ignore the non-existent cockpit, believing that the top wing would restrict visibility into that part of the model anyway. However, with everything together now, I discovered I was quite wrong - visibility into the open cockpit was quite good. I suppose this means that in real life, the pilot's field of view from the cockpit was quite good too; and that conversely, he was also sitting quite exposed and in the open in front of the enemy's machine guns! Anyway, I decided to put something in there to fill the empty space, so made a little seat and instrument panel out of 0.5 mm styrene and glued them in. At some stage, I may come back to making a windscreen as well, but for now, I'm done.

Conclusions

Apart from the terrible decals, this kit's greatest shortcoming is merely its lack of detail. I haven't compared it to plans, but in general outline and shape, it looks distinctively like a Camel to me. Anyone looking for an accurate replica will be looking to the Roden kits, I suspect, but for what it is, this one's not too bad.

Lessons

If I had to build this kit again, I would:

• find some aftermarket decals
• drill small holes through the lower wing for rigging before attaching them to the fuselage
• install an instrument panel and seat before attaching the top wing and rigging the aircraft

Images