Eastern Express 1/72 Sikorsky S.XVI

Eastern Express kit 72218

Purchased: Hannants, £5.99, photoetch wire wheels from Jadar-Model, zł 32.00
Completed: 28 February 2007 (wheels added in May)

• Nation: Russia
• Era: 1910-1919
• Justification: As far as I can tell, this was the only Russian-built fighter to see squadron service during World War I. Some machines remained in service in secondary roles into the 1920s. 

 

The kit

This kit is identical with the S.XVI marketed by Dako-plast - indeed, it still bears the Dako-plast name moulded into the single sprue of hard, brittle white styrene and one can see where the Dako-plast logo has been crudely whited-out on the equally crudely photocopied instruction sheet. Classy!

The quality of the moulding is generally good - with really nice, petite detail on the gun for example. Another, more knowledgeable reviewer has pointed out a number of deficiencies with the kit, including it being about 10% underscale and not representing any particular variant of the S.XVI, but rather, a conglomeration of features from different ones. Decals are provided for a single, generic machine. This is perhaps fortunate because that the paint plan on the poorly-reproduced instructions is useless. With such a simple paint scheme, this isn't an issue though. Options are provided for either wheeled or ski undercarriage, and therein lies one of the kit's greatest shortcomings. The exposed, wire-spoked wheels are a distinctive feature of this aircraft, but here, the four mainwheels are provided with solid hubs - as if they represented canvas-covered wheels. I knew from the outset that I wanted wire wheels, so ordered an Eduard set which three weeks later unfortunately still hasn't graced my mailbox at the time of writing.

One real peculiarity of the kit is the parts breakdown. While it's common for small 1/72 aircraft kits to have a one-piece wing that the fuselage halves sit atop of, generally the cutout on the fuselage halves matches the airfoil shape of the wings. For whatever reason in this case, Dako-plast chose to make this cutout rectangular, and included a rectangular chunk of lower fuselage moulded integrally with the one-piece wing. When you see something as bizarre as this, you just know that it doesn't bode well!

A reasonably detailed little cockpit is provided - with a full forward bulkhead, steering wheel (yes!), and rudder bar. This is fortunate, since the cockpit is one of the most exposed that I've ever seen. A superdetailer could go really nuts here. I am not that superdetailer.

 

The build

Construction

While the major airframe components went together quite well, this kit's devil is definitely in the detail. The main problem early on was, as predicted, the weird wing-to-fuselage joint. This required lots of putty and lots of sanding to get to an acceptable finish. And then there was still a bit more sanding!

The problems with this kit are many, but mostly reflect very sloppy engineering with regard to the fit, placement, and thickness of parts. My experiences, I'm happy to note, paralleled those of Michael Kendix's review that I referred to earlier, and I take comfort in the fact that "it's not just me"!  I'll cheerfully confirm Michael's observations that:

• the fuselage won't fit over the cockpit assembly unless the cockpit firewall is considerably reduced in height first
• the alignment of the fuselage halves is poor (I'll actually disagree with Michael here and say that it is a bigger deal than usual, on account of the fact that the top and bottom of the fuselage on the S.XVI are completely flat surfaces, which makes sanding a real pain)
• the engine cowling won't fit over the engine unless the thickness of the cowling is reduced dramatically. I was especially grateful to have forewarning of this, as I think it would have caused me no end of grief had I blundered into it unaware.
• The location of the machine gun and ammunition chute is anyone's guess really. The only clue provided by Dako-plast, a groove in the forward fuselage, is clearly not an option since in that spot the gun will foul one of the cabane struts. Going on my limited references on this aircraft, it seems to me that the proportions of the kit are quite off in this area, which can't help. The gun also looks a little big to me, making me wonder whether the gun at least is around 1/72 when the airframe around it is in a smaller scale?

In the end, this is all just griping though, and there's nothing here that persistent sanding and a little jiggling about of parts won't fix.

Painting

While there's no surviving example of an S.XVI known anywhere in the world, a full-scale replica was built by a group of Russian enthusiasts and finished by Sikorsky in the United States. It resides at the New England Air Museum in Connecticut and I chose to model this aircraft, not only as the closest thing to a real S.XVI in existence, but because of it's easy and generic markings, that incidentally match the ones provided with the kit!

The whole aircraft was painted in a Clear Doped Linen colour mixed roughly half-and-half from Tamiya Flat White XF-2 and Buff XF-57. The engine cowling and forward fuselage were then brush-painted Flat Aluminium XF-16 and that was it! Yay!

Rigging and final assembly

Rigging was pretty straight forward, although I did experience more breaks than normal, probably because the strut attachment points are pretty weak on this model. In fact, the cabane struts are simply butt-jointed to the fuselage sides. In retrospect, I wonder whether I should have cemented these on before the first coat of paint went on - a bare-styrene-to-bare-styrene cemented joint being undoubtedly stronger than an acrylic-painted-styrene-to-acrylic-painted-styrene CA'd joint. Rigging the intricate undercarriage assembly was tedious, but not especially difficult in any way.

I've left the wheels off while I await their photoetched replacements.

Decals

Decals were pleasantly thin and in register and their application was entirely unremarkable. Good!

 

Conclusions

This provided a nice, relatively simple build. A bit dear for what you get in the box, but that's expected to some degree for these obscure subjects. While there were undeniable problems with the kit, these were no greater or more problematic than those of the average short-run product. While apparently not really that accurate, the finished model does capture the S.XVI's ungainly stance quite accurately. I was left with the impression that having mastered aeronautical ugliness to this degree so early on, helicopters were just the next natural step for Sikorsky! :)

Lessons

This list would have been a long one if Michael Kendix hadn't taken the fall for me! But if I had to build this kit again, I would:

• try and achieve more solid attachment of the struts from the outset, to make rigging neater and less painful later.

 

Postscript: Wheels

Well, the Eduard photoetched wire wheels (set 72-439) arrived after a few weeks. The set is a single photoetched fret with finely-etched discs to represent spoked wheels in eight sizes (four discs per size). Each set of four is to equip a single model, since Eduard suggests that you lightly dish the discs using a ball bearing and then attach them concave-side to concave-side before adding a tyre. With double the number of wheels on this aircraft to begin with, laziness once again got the better of me and I resolved to just use one (un-dished) disc to represent each wheel. The big question was: what to do about tyres? Advice I solicited online was either to find a suitably-sized rubber grommet to fit, or cut discs from a length of styrene tube. I chose to do something like the second suggestion. I took the kit wheels, then sawed them in half across their discs (much easier than it sounds - I simply ran them gently back and forth along a razor saw blade until they parted) then drilled out their centres to leave only tyres remaining. I then glued them back together with the photoetch discs in the middle, and used copious amounts of putty to fill the resulting gaps. This made a world of difference as against the kit-supplied solid centres, and I'm very glad I used them.

 

Images

 

MAC 1/72 Phönix D.II

MAC kit 72036

Purchased: Squadron, $USD 11.96
Completed: 14 February 2007

• Nation: Austria-Hungary
• Era: 1910-1919
• Justification: The ultimate development in Austria-Hungary's domestic fighter production. Derivatives continued in Swedish service after the war. 

 

The kit

This is a typical example of the nice short-run kits that have been coming out of Eastern Europe for the last decade or so. Moulding is very nice, even accounting for the slightly thick parts and wide sprue attachment points necessitated by the low pressures used in production. The main sprue contains a number of parts not used for this particular Phönix model, but for other variants marketed by MAC (they also do a  D.I and a D.IIa - see this Internet Modeler article for a comparison of the sprues). Fine parts, such as cockpit details, are provided as photoetch, and there's a small sheet of printed acetate to provide cockpit gauges and a windscreen to cut out.

Decals are provided for three aircraft, which are not identified in the instructions, but which other sources identify as those of Karl Teichmann, Alexander Kasza, and Hans Leiner. These are of the high standard that's come to be expected from Eastern European printers. 

 

The build

Construction

The first phase of construction went very well indeed. The interior parts fitted together well, although the photoetch instrument panel was slightly the wrong shape to sit happily inside the fuselage. I had to trim a little off each side to get it into place, and even now there's still a little gap between the top of the panel and the fuselage. I didn't bother with the photoetch control stick and rudder bar, since the former will be practically invisible and the latter completely invisible once the model is complete. The lower wings are provided with locator pins to aid their joint to the fuselage. These, however, are far too large to fit into the corresponding holes in the fuselage sides, and I ended up slicing them off and just butt-jointing the wings on, after roughing up the mating surfaces to give the cement something to really key to. The tailplane assembly is unorthodox - it slides into a slot provided at the rear of the fuselage once the two sides are together - but works well. I left off the engine head and intake manifolds for now, adding them after the painting was completed. With the prominent exhaust pipes such a focal point of the model, I felt I had no choice but to drill them out, which I did by twisting the end of a new #11 blade in them.

Painting

With no preserved aircraft to serve as a guide, I based my paint scheme on information provided in the instructions and on the box-top painting. Actually, I think I followed the box-top too closely, resulting in an aircraft that's predominantly brown instead of predominantly green, as it should be (according to the instructions, anyway). Reading that the real aircraft's camouflage was applied with a rough sponge, I began a search for a suitable tool. I wondered if there were another way to apply this rather than stippling it on with a dry brush. Fortunately, inspiration struck in the form of a type of eye makeup applicator. This is a short stick, about 50 mm (2 inches) in length, with a fine sponge at the end of it. I bought a pack of 12 for just $AUD 4 from a nearby chemist (in a "convenient purse pack"), and tests on some scrap plastic showed it to be ideal for the job when used almost dry. I just wish I had the colours right!

I'm pleased to report that I can indeed learn from past experiences, and after the paint was on, I made small holes about mid-chord where the lower wings meet the fuselage and attached the first rigging lines here.

Rigging and final assembly

This is where things all went pear-shaped. As I proceeded to attach the upper wing, it soon became apparent that something was very wrong.

I had begun by attaching the cabane struts to the fuselage, using a card template cut to the width of their attachment points on the upper wing to keep them properly aligned. I followed this with the upper wing itself. So far, so good. I was still feeling pretty happy with how this model was going together. Next, I went to put the interplane struts in place. They wouldn't go. And as I wrestled with the struts on one side, the cabane struts broke loose from their attachments to the fuselage. Fine, I thought, I'll finish with the interplane struts, then re-attach the cabane struts. Except that when I did, the interplane struts broke loose. Uh oh.

Putting the model aside for a moment, I tried to work out what the problem was. I realised that there were three possibilities: the forward interplane strut was too short, the cabane struts were too long, or there wasn't enough dihedral on the lower wing. Consulting the beautifully-drawn plans on the back of the instruction sheet, I confirmed that the lower wing shouldn't have any dihedral at all. OK - so it's a problem with the struts. MAC provides all four interplane struts as identical parts; however, the drawings clearly show that the forward struts have to be longer than the rear ones. Returning to the model, I trimmed an end off two of the struts and lengthened them about 3 mm with scraps of sheet styrene. Now everything went together with minimal fuss. So beware! Actually, had I done a bit more research, I would have been forewarned of this problem, since it's mentioned in the Internet Modeler review of this kit, as well as in two reviews of the closely-related D.I kit. 

Rigging followed and presented no particular problems, other than pulling out the odd strut attachment here and there (presumably weakened by the foregoing mucking about).

Decals

I only used the national markings from the sheet, and the decals performed exactly as expected. They were  crisply printed, very opaque (even the white around the national insignia) and very thin. Actually, maybe even too thin, given that they were also provided with very powerful adhesive - I managed to tear two while positioning them, but was able to lay the fragments in place before the adhesive really took.

 

Conclusions

This project started out pleasantly enough, but the dramas provided by the strut debacle really soured the experience for me. The struts pulled out and were reattached so many times that the finish around the points where they meet the wings is well and truly trashed. Coupled with my getting the paint scheme wrong (only my own fault), that means I have a model here I'm not very happy with. One day I might come back and re-do it, and when I do, I'll be satisfied to use the same kit.

Lessons

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

• cut the forward interplane struts from scratch!
• read the painting instructions more carefully

 

Images

 

Revell 1/72 Fokker D.VII

Revell kit 04177
Almark decals A-31 and A-32

Purchased: kit from eBay, $AUD 10.50, decals from Hannants, £2.95 per sheet
Completed: 5 February 2007

• Nation: Germany
• Era: 1910-1919
• Justification: The zenith of German fighter development during World War I, the Fokker D.VII was even named specifically in the Armistice treaty (Germany was required to surrender all aircraft of this type).

The kit

I don't know the history of this particular kit, but the inclusion of a pilot figure and a slot for a display stand (flashed over) makes me think that it's been around for a while. Nevertheless, the moulding is of extremely high quality, with next to no flash or alignment problems. The wings and tail surfaces sport rib detail that is, to my eye, just right. The honeycomb pattern of the radiator is beautifully represented, and there's the faintest of faint fabric traces moulded into the plastic. This is so fine that I can't imagine it surviving even a single coat of paint. The quality of the moulding is really quite incredible. Unfortunately, the level of detail doesn't carry over to the engine or cockpit, but the guns are quite nice too. In fairness, if the pilot figure was installed, you really wouldn't be able to see the absence of the cockpit. The engine is provided as cylinder heads and exhaust only - and with this assembly as exposed as it is, there's plenty of opportunity to add details of the valve gear if one were so inclined (I wasn't).

Decals are provided for two aircraft: Rudolph Berthold's famous eye-catching red-and-blue example, and (much to my surprise) Hermann Göring's machine! I would have thought in a marketplace where the populous is protected from seeing a swastika, little mementos like this of Göring would be similarly verboten, but apparently not. The decals themselves are exquisitely printed: perfectly in register, and opaque, and with no excess of carrier film surrounding them - very impressive. One peculiarity is Revell's provision of pre-printed lozenge patterns for the underside of Berthold's aircraft - as black-and-white outlines only! The paint plan on the instruction sheet informs the modeller of how to paint in the colours, but who's going to do that? Surely printing this in colour wouldn't have broken the bank for Revell.

The build

Construction

Assembly was a breeze, with everything fitting together well and hardly any gaps to speak of. A little putty was needed under the nose, but that was it. I made a generic instrument panel and seat from 0.5 mm styrene and popped them in and then it was time for paint and the extensive decal job. I left all the tail surfaces off at this point to help facilitate the latter process.

Painting

As with previous aircraft in this series, I wanted to do a fairly generic machine, and wanted very much to use the distinctive lozenge camouflage of the era. Looking at photos online of preserved aircraft, I settled on a four-colour lozenge, and bought Almark's upper and lower sheets. Each of these provides four strips of camouflage, with rib tapes in a self-colour. The lower colours seemed a good match for the aircraft in Paris and the two in Canada, but the upper colours didn't look so close to me. I don't know whether this is because it's meant to represent a different fabric from the one used on these aircraft though. The lower colours sheet seemed to have some registration issues - I think some of the lozenges have been deliberately printed slightly oversize to eliminate the possibility of any blank spots between them. In any case, it's only noticeable under really close inspection. Choosing a museum aircraft as a starting point, I initially selected the one at the Deutsches Museum. Although I was aware that this is apparently a post-war Dutch aircraft now wearing spurious markings, I felt that it is at least preserved in Germany, as the Camel and SPAD I modelled are preserved in their home countries as well. I therefore mixed up a dull red from Tamiya Flat Red XF-7 with a dash of Hull Red XF-9 (really more a brown, if you ask me...) and sprayed it on. At this point, disaster struck for the first time. Although the mix looked fine to me, it sprayed on very transparent and runny, making for a really horrible finish. I waited for this to dry, then tried again without any thinner in the mix at all, and got the same result.

I still don't know what really went wrong, but it was while I was waiting for this mess to dry that I started looking very closely at photos of various D.VIIs to try to plan how I would apply the lozenge. The more I looked at the Deutsches Museum's aircraft, the less satisfied I was with it as a subject. For a start, the upper and lower surfaces both appear to wear the same fabric - I don't know whether this was true of any WWI examples or not. I also noted that this machine's red cowling and struts were at odds with three other authentically-preserved machines, whose were a grey-green. Again, I don't know which was more typical. Finally, I came to realise that the most direct solution to the problem I was having with my red paint was to choose another colour! I mixed up what looked like a suitable shade from XF-19 Sky Grey and XF-26 Deep Green in about a 3:1 ratio, and pressed on. At this stage, I made another decision that I was to be very glad of later - undercoating the entire aircraft in that same colour. I reasoned that this would be less obvious than the bare white plastic under any stratches or gaps in the lozenge decals.

Decals

The Almark decals were a real joy to work with; everything a decal should be! At first, they seemed rather thick to me, but once on the model, they settled down of their own accord, clinging tightly even to the rib detail, and this without any softening agent. They were also strong enough to withstand a little bit of tugging that was sometimes needed to manoeuver them exactly into place. Because they were covering so much of this model, I wanted to take no risks of them lifting or peeling, and used Mr Mark Setter as I went, but I got the impression that they would have adhered quite happily even without this. For guidance as to its application, I looked to the photos on the World War I Modeling Page. I was able to make out the patterns on the upper and lower wings, as well as the fuselage sides and top, but was unable to discern the pattern on the underside of the fuselage and tailplane. Fortunately, a call for help on the Hyperscaleforums yielded almost immediate results in the form of a scan from a Windsock datafile on the D.VII. I completed the undersides first and then wondered about rib tapes. At first I thought I wouldn't worry about this little detail, but realised that I would agonise about it afterwards if I didn't. So I set to it. Instead of using the tapes provided on the sheets, I thought I would use thin strips of lozenge, as I know was done on some aircraft. Covering the undersides had used all of three of the four strips of lozenge supplied, and a little of the fourth. With a steel rule and a new #11 blade, I cut the remaining decal into thin strips. When I started applying this to the underside of the top wing, I found that the strips broke up the pattern far too much for my liking. No doubt this was because the strips I had made were too wide for this scale. I had only applied four at this point, and was still able to remove them before they had set. As it turned out, this was another very fortuitous decision.

Everything went well until I was reaching the end of the upper surface decalling. I had finished the wings and fuselage top, and now had both fuselage sides and the horizontal stabiliser to go... and only one strip of decal left! As I started on the broad tailplane upper surface, it was already apparent that I would run short. I did the best I could, but had to complete the decalling with scraps and offcuts from the workbench and is therefore far from correct. Still, this was far more palatable than springing for a whole new sheet for the sake of only a few centimetres of decal. I think that if I had been more frugal as I worked, I would just have made it, so take note! I definitely wouldn't have had any decal left to make rib tapes for the upper surfaces though.

Final assembly

Final assembly was as easy as it gets with biplanes - the struts lined up perfectly, and really, it all just about fell into place. The almost complete lack of rigging was also welcome! I used the Revell decals for the national markings in all eight positions. In use, these lived up to their promise on the sheet. The white parts of the insignia were nicely opaque and yet they also hugged the model nicely. Very impressive.

Conclusions

Overall, this was a really pleasant build. About the only thing I would do differently is be more frugal with the upper surface decals.
Parking the finished model on the shelf next to my Camel and SPAD saw the new arrival dwarfing the Allied fighters. Annoyed, I assumed that the kit must be slightly out-of-scale. However, measuring it showed it to be pretty much spot-on to dimensions I found on-line.

Lessons

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

• be more frugal with the upper-surface lozenge decals

Special Thanks

To "Mira from Czech" on the Hyperscale forums for the Windsock scan

Images