One picture attached to prove that my cookup build is done!
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Albatros D.Va
Eduard 1/72
Shane Weier
One picture attached to prove that my cookup build is done!
There are perhaps two abiding images of aerial combat in World War One. The first is the all red triplane of Manfred von Richtoffen, the second is of swirling dogfights between the sharklike and brightly coloured Albatros Scouts of the German fighting squadrons - Jastas - and their Entente Cordiale opponents.
The history - Backbone of the Jastas
The last of these excellent fighters was the Albatros D.V and a slightly modified derivative, the D.Va. First flown in early 1917, the D.V reached the front line Jastas in May, but despite being an improvement on the Albatros D.III it was plagued with wing failures. Attempts to overcome this fault were never entirely successful. The modified D.Va had a beefed up structure and changed control line layouts in an attempt to resolve these problems, and while some improvement was made the additional weight offset even the extra power of the uprated engine leaving the Jasta pilots disappointed.Despite this, the D.Va soldiered on to the Armistice, flown by many German aces and hundreds of their unsung but essential companions at arms.
Among the rolls of these virtually unknown pilots is Vizfeldwebel Michael Sigman, who joined the relatively new Jasta 78b from training on 21 February 1918, and departed with a wound to his upper arm on 27 August having survived the cauldron of wartime flying without being credited with any victories over his opponents. Vfw Sigman's Albatros D.Va is therefore known better for the spectacular scheme of white stars scattered on a black fuselage than for its combat record - other than having a role in carrying a brave 22 year old into battle.
The modeller intent on building an Albatros D.V in 1:48 is now well served, but until recently making an accurate 1:72 model meant correcting some pretty old kits or buying an expensive short run or resin kit..
The Kit: Eduards Tiny Albatros
Eduard has come to our rescue with an absolutely beautiful kit, available in both Profipack version (with etched brass details and extra decals) or a simpler but still excellent non Profipack kit. My model is based on the Profipack version, kit 7020, which includes the many small stars needed to model Sigmans aircraft.
Eduard provides a single sprue of 31 parts which includes a headrest fairing not appropriate to any of the decal options included, and a cockpit floor part replaced in this kit by an etched part. This sprue, with a different set of decals comprise the total of the non Profipack version.
The Profipack version also includes a comprehensive etched metal sheet which includes a quite convincing cockpit fold up, Spandau cooling jackets and a selection of tiny internal and external detailing parts which work well despite some of them being close to the limits of my skill to apply. There are four options on the beautifully printed decal sheet. All require the use of lozenge decals on the wings of the aircraft, and this is also provided as full span sections for both surfaces of each wing and for the tailplane and elevator of Sigmans aircraft - the only one without a painted tailplane.
The lozenge is unfortunately the only part of this kit which I consider unsatisfactory. The lozenge has five colours, yet the lower surface material more nearly matches the real four colour lozenge and neither comes anywhere near matching any real or highly regarded replica fabric. I think that a modeller making this kit as a change from a diet of heavy metal aircraft would at least get an impression of how the aircraft should look, but anyone with an interest in the history of aviation and an interest in camouflage or markings would be well advised to buy some of the after market sheets made by Americal Gryphon (US) or Pegasus (UK). I chose to use the out of production Aeromaster sheets because
a) I had some and couldn't wait to build the kit and
b) While these aren't as good as the other after market sheets I never had enough of either in this scale
The build: Big Fingers and little parts
Construction starts with the cockpit, which in this kit is enhanced with a folded etch metal interior structure and seatbelts. These fitted well and look quite convincing in the confines of the tiny Albatros cockpit. However, Eduard have made one error in their instructions. The kit provides an etched piece PE32 (looks like a tuning fork) which is shown as being installed between the control column and the pilots seat. This is in fact wrong, the piece should sit on the engine side of the column. It's also reversed in the instructions, the lever attached to one side of the "U" should be on the *port* side - it represents the column locking lever.
The control column (Part 10) is also somewhat simplified. I elected to correct the column, though in this scale some of the improvements themselves need to be simplified.
The column has an inverted "U" shaped section on the bottom which fits into two holes. In reality this fits over the aileron torque tube which extends from about 6" on the pilots side of the base of the column, to the firewall. I put a piece of thin brass rod under the column, with the aft end extending through about 2mm and the forward end *above* the centre of the rudder bar and cut to fit at the "firewall" end. The base end of part PE32 sits on top of this rod and the top of PE32 cradles the front side of the stick under the grip.
I cut off the grip, extended the top of the column slightly with a curved fragment of rod thinner than the column, then glued the grip on top at an angle - then added another piece between the column and the bottom of the grip ring.
The triggers were made from two disks cut off the end of some rod which had been scraped to a flat sided oval shape, and a hand throttle from stretched sprue.
This photo shows the stick at full size - the enlarged view is there so that the above instructions make some sense !
Before the cockpit halves can be closed the engine needs to be installed. Eduard provides a half engine - no block, but it's absolutely invisible anyway - with separate rocker covers, intake manifold and exhausts. Be warned though, the instructions show the rocker covers (part 23) without the compression release lever housing, a disk shape which is moulded onto the aft end of the part. Leave it there; it's correct on every Albatros fighter.
Construction proceeds quickly from this point. The fuselage halves go together without fuss and filler was not required. The lower wing is a tight, filler free fit, and the tailplane fits like a glove. I repositioned the elevator by first scribing the hinge line and cutting through the outer angled sections. The elevator is then bent to position and a little liquid glue run into the joint to set the angle. The separate fin and tail skid fairing fit into slots and should have a bead of thick superglue or filler run along the join. These parts were integral with the fuselage and faired smoothly - there should be no abrupt join. A few moments with wet and dry paper and the seams are invisible and the completed fuselage and lower wing ready for painting.
The midships portion of Sigman's aircraft was left unpainted plywood. I simulated this by painting the entire airframe in a pale tan colour, then masking in turn each of the middle wood panels with tape. Ochre and Burnt Sienna watercolour pencils were used sparingly to draw in a representation of wood grain before blending with a very, very slightly dampened brush or finger tip. Errors are wiped away with a damp cloth and redone. The key here is subtlety since the wood used was of the best quality with few if any knots, and fine grain which should be nearly invisible in this small scale. When satisfied, a coat of clear enamel based varnish sets the watercolour without dissolving it. Masking the centre section off is simple enough prior to spraying the remainder of the airframe with "scale" black. In my case this looked like a dark, dark grey until the final coat of clear future returned it to a good impression of pure black . Sometimes you just don't win !
Photographs show Sigman's aircraft to be a D.Va. In this version the aileron control cables were fed through the lower wing, exiting through holes in the upper surface aft of the V struts and attaching to the rear of the aileron, and to an elevator horn which extends forward of the aileron leading edge in a slot cut into the rear of the top wing. This is not represented in the kit, but easily done if intend to remove and reposition the control surfaces. With the ailerons removed a slot is cut and filed between the ribs either side of the top mounting points for the interplane V struts, and a horn fabricated from brass wire is set into the aileron leading edge. This is shown in the photograph
With the major airframe parts completed and cleaned up, decalling can take place. This aircraft, and by the photographic record most other Albatrosse had the lozenge fabric applied chordwise - that is, with the strips running parallel with the fuselage centre line. Ther is evidence of alternate stripes being run in opposite directions, and other of strips being run in the same direction - but no evidence to show which is correct here. It is, however, 5 colour lozenge. The strips are laid from the centre (or wing root) outwards, side by side and close together. Make no attempt to match the position of the pattern - this would have wasted fabric and simply wasn't done. Also, make no attempt to have the joins on the rib lines. Not only was this not done, it MUST not be done as it places the weakest part of the fabric into the place where the stresses are highest.
Let a small amount of excess overhand the trailing edge. When both top and bottom lozenge have been completed, use a brand new blade and slice away the excess, followed by a tidying using 1200 grit paper. On the tailplane the fabric should not follow the join line between the tailplane part and the fuselage parts. On the real aircraft the tailplane root was wood, and parallel with the centre line from about half chord. On the kit you should follow the join line until about 12mm from the fuselage rear, then parallel with the centre line to the hinge line. This should leave the fuselage rear (painted black) about 7.5mm wide.
Rib tapes were used to strengthen the fabric where it had been weakened by the stitches used to hold it onto the wing ribs, and similar taping surrounds the wing and other places where it has to be holed. I used blue tapes cut from pre sprayed clear decal film using a jig, and hand painted the scalloped trailing edge. Since the few photos of this aircraft are inconclusive in regard to colour, you are free to do whatever you choose! While taping is somewhat time consuming, it is still easily completed in two nights, and adds immensely to the authenticity and detail of the model.
A few words on tapes may be in order. The German aircraft industry used at least four types and may have used others. Those known to be used on Albatros D.V aircraft included light blue, rose pink and strips of lozenge. For many years modellers have believed that the rose pink was "underside" and the blue "topside" tape, but photographic and other evidence shows that either could be used on either surface, and it is in fact likely that the same tape (whichever it was) was usually used on both surfaces of the wings because changing tape at the leading edge actually introduces a major weakness at the worst possible point ! For an example of an aircraft with all rose pink tapes, North American readers should go to the Smithsonian and inspect their 1:1 scale original.
Taping completed I carefully drilled pilot holes for rigging. On the D.Va there are inspection plates at the wing root and under the bottom of the V struts. I elected to drill blind holes in the upper wing and fuselage, and right through the lower wing exiting within the rigging plates for reasons which will soon be obvious. The radiator shutter and Spandau machine guns now need to be installed - you won't get them in once the wing is in place - and we are at last ready to make our model into a biplane.
Assembling this aircraft proved simpler than most thanks to quite accurate fit of parts. I made a simple jig then installed the V struts. Once dry the cabane struts were finagled into position with only minimal cursing when I realised that the pins on their top sides should be offset, and are therefore not all that useful. All struts are painted with RLM02 acrylic, an excellent match for the grey-green colour used by OAW, manufacturer of this aircraft. The undercarriage struts and axle is painted similarly and installed again using a simple jig to assure alignment.
Rigging is possibly the second greatest terror for newcomers to biplane modelling after the trauma of aligning the upper wing. In this case it is almost too simple. Each line, including the control lines, are glued in place at the top using cyanoacrylate glue, then fed through the lower wing. When all are in place they are carefully pulled tight - all of those fed through each rigging access plate at one time. A single drop of glue in each of four places virtually finishes the job. These are then carefully trimmed with a sharp blade and the holes covered with a pre painted plate cut from 5 thou card. Finally, add the control lines to the tail - these are glued into the fuselage holes, and when dry stretched over the top of the brass control horns before fixing with a drop of CyA and trimming with a new blade.
It only remains to add details. These include nicely moulded wheels, a prop which should be painted to represent the alternating wood types used on most German propellers, and the exhaust. Water pipes from fuse wire and the few remaining kit details complete a most satisfying build, and a final coat of satin varnish represents a scaled down version of the glossy doped finish of the real thing.
The Conclusion - a tour de force
This is a superb kit. Accurate and complete, with excellent fit, a high level of detailing and colourful well printed decals it is in my opinion the best 1/72 kit of any WW1 aircraft available. Highly recommended - buy several!
This article is mirrored from http://www.geocities.com/rsm_brisbane/sigman.html
Courtesy of Shane Weier and the Riverside Scale Model Club Official Home Page
