Academy 1/72 SPAD XIII

Academy kit 1623

Purchased: Hobby One, Brisbane. $AUD 4.50
Completed: 24 January 2007 (but awaiting decals)

• Nation: France
• Era: 1910-1919
• Justification: Some 8,500 SPAD XIIIs were built - making it one of the most numerous fighters of World War I. It also continued in use long into the 1920s with various air forces. One of the many Nieuport types may also have been suitable, but no single model seemed as ubiquitous as the SPAD.

The kit

The parts breakdown, with the wing and cabane struts moulded integrally with sections of wing surface makes me think that like Academy's Sopwith Camel, this kit may have been inspired by the old Esci kit. Moulding is nice and crisp, but detail is very simplified. There is no cockpit to speak of, and the front of the upper fuselage is adorned with strange mechanical-looking "bits". After consulting reference photos, I determined these to be the machine guns, with a telescopic sight between them. The business end of the guns terminate in non-descript blobs. To me, these look like aerodynamic fairings over the muzzles, but no photos of SPAD XIIIs that I could find on line seemed to sport these features. If you know what these are, please tell me!

The kit's surface features extremely heavy-handed rib detail, which would have been nice on a Junkers with corrugated skin, but is far over-the-top here. Also, like the Camel kit, there are prominent ejector-pin marks in the middle of some of these ribs. The underside of the lower wings also comprise a section of the the fuselage bottom, and this features some extremely heavy detail too - way, way out of scale. It was only from repeated viewings of pictures of The Memorial Flight's SPAD in the air that I realised that these details should be there at all, let alone so prominent in 1/72.

Decals are provided for one aircraft in US markings (Escadrille Lafayette's "Indian head" and swastika), and are nicely in register and opaque, but very thick and glossy.

 

The build

Construction

Construction was pretty straightforward, with two horrible flaws. The first of these was between the forward fuselage decking (bearing the "guns") and the radiator cowling (right - note also slight fuselage mis-alignment). This was shimmed with styrene sheet. A second prominent gap featured between the top of the rear fuselage and the (one piece) horizontal stabilisers. I puttied this over, and tried to re-scribe the intricate, overdone detail to match.

As completed, the profile of the radiator cowling is poor - the underside of it is parallel to the aircraft's major axis, rather than blending in with the curves of the underside of the forward fuselage. Unfortunately, simply sanding this to match was not an option, since this would have resulted in the bottom of the cowling being far too thin when viewed from the front. Likewise, building up the underside of the nose would have distorted the contours there, when (as far as I can see) they appear to be right as-is. It would also have meant losing and re-creating the nice, petite louvre detail, which I didn't want to have to do!

Learning from my experiences with the Camel, I decided to install a rudimentary cockpit at this stage - just a simple seat fashioned from bent sheet styrene and a completely inaccurate instrument panel. The gross inaccuracy of the latter was necessitated by the fact that Academy had already moulded in a conventional "dashboard", while the SPAD's instruments were actually arranged more like clocks on a mantlepiece, and there was no way I was going to do the kind of surgery required to suggest that. At least the SPAD's cockpit isn't as exposed as the Camel's.

Painting

I wanted to model an aircraft in the French camouflage of the day, and The Memorial Flight's website featured beautiful pictures for reference. I therefore elected to reproduce their aircraft, that of Brigadier Henri Trémeau of SPA 83 "Les dragons". I began with the undersides, basically half-and-half Tamiya Buff XF-57 and Flat White XF-2 with a dash of Desert Yellow XF-59. I then started the tedious process of masking the four topside colours. During this time, I realised the shortcomings of the reference photos I was using. Tricks of the light made me question whether some areas were or were not the same colour as adjacent areas made from different materials. Other lighting shortcomings meant that I could not see the camouflage patterns on starboard side of the fuselage or the top of the portside lower wing clearly. I downloaded some of the photos and tried tweaking the brightness and contrast in Photoshop, and this helped a little. Eventually, I just had to go with what I could see, and hope that my extrapolations aren't too far from reality.

The lightest green was a roughly 1:1 mix of Tamiya Buff XF-57 and Sky XF-21. I then further mixed this with some Deep Green XF-26 to create the middle green tone. The dark green was Deep Green with just a dash of white for scale effect (and because I couldn't bear using a main colour straight out of the jar!) and the chocolate colour was Flat Brown XF-40 similarly tinted down. The bright blue ailerons are Sky Blue X-14.

As always, the Tamiya paints sprayed on beautifully, but in the end, I was a little disappointed with the finish I'd achieved. Parked next to the Camel, the SPAD has a distinctively more toy-like appearance, and I'm sure this is mostly due to the highly saturated dark green and dark brown colours. More scale effect next time!

Decals

Although I wasn't using most of the supplied decals, the rudder markings were still useful for a French aircraft. Wary after my experiences with the Camel, I nevertheless decided to give them a try. Since my biggest problem last time stemmed from a lack of adhesive, I tried to limit the decals' exposure to water. I just dipped them in quickly then let them sit on the bench for a few seconds, which was indeed enough to loosen them. This time, they stuck much better, although they still proved resistant to Mr Mark Setter. Since the rudder is effectively flat, this didn't prove to be much of a problem. At the time of writing, I'm still looking for French roundels for the model (16 mm diameter, or 5/8" - can you help?) and will need to do the black dragon unit markings and the large number 5 markings on the top wing and fuselage sides later. I was considering buying some inkjet decal paper, but reports of colours fading after several months have put me off. Instead, I'll wait until I have a few more planes in this collection awaiting custom markings, and then look for someone with a dye-sublimation (ALPS) printer.

Rigging and final assembly

I used the same rigging technique here as on the Camel - rigging the mainplane struts before even attaching them to the aircraft. This was a real blessing when dealing with the tiny lengths of rigging between the inboard struts! Unfortunately, I forgot to rig the cabane struts, and only caught the mistake once the top wing was already on. Because of the very small clearance between the top of the fuselage and the top wing, this turned out to be a very expensive mistake in terms of frustration and going cross-eyed. Nevertheless, I got it done. The other mistake I'd made was in failing to learn from my Camel experiences and not checking where the mainplane rigging would meet the lower fuselage along the joint with the lower wing. Again, trying to attach this rigging after the plane was already assembled would have meant a major hassle in drilling holes in the right spots. Fortunately, an alternative and only slightly inaccurate option presented itself by attaching these lines just inside the leading and trailing edges of the wings. This means that my mainplane rigging doesn't line up properly, but because of the difference in the amount of effort involved, I decided I would live with it and remember to check properly next time!

 

Conclusions

For some reason, this build stands out in my mind as trickier than I know it really was. Maybe this is because of my dissatisfaction with the way that the nose looks and my own mistakes during the rigging process, or from all the boring masking. Eduard's is the current "best of breed" SPAD in this scale is - but photos on the World War I Modeling Page suggest to me that the old Revell kit is probably a better bet than this for a SPAD on a budget. Still, apart from the nose contours that continue to annoy me and the corrugated iron effect on the wings, this little kit captures the muscular, business-like look of the SPAD reasonably well.

Lessons

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

• study the rigging more carefully and drill the required holes before starting
• tone down the dark green and brown a bit further

 

Images

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