Central Powers
by Dave Calhoun

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Aviatik Berg D.I

Kit: Sierra (1:48)

Frank Linke-Crawford's Aviatik D.1 Berg, built from the Sierra 1/48 scale vacuform. Includes scratchbuilt interior, engine & gun bay. Americal/Gryphon provided the hexagon camouflage decals & Blue Rider provided the personal marking for the fuselage. The upper wing L was cut from white decal paper. I applied white border crosses on the upper wings, although black may be more authentic. I used black crosses, and they all but disappeared on the dark hexagons, so the white border crosses may be artistic license, but I haven't seen a photo of the upper wing of this aircraft. The wheels are photoetched items from Fotocut, and I used o-rings for the tires. This is a mistake, as dry rot set in, and I now have cracked tires, and no way to replace them without ruining the spoked wheels. Invisible thread was used for rigging & Elmers glue for turnbuckles. Took a lot of work, but was worth it, I think it looks better than the Flashback kit with my added engine bay details. The vacuform fuselage allows interior to be detailed without thinning the overly thick plastic fuselage interior parts.


Gotha G.V

Kit: Aurora (1:48)

Another long lost one in the collection, I built this Aurora Gotha G.V in the mid 1990's. Luckily it was the 1975 edition, which has all of the embossed insignia removed. It was built out of the box other than cutting out the forward windows and adding Aeroclub machineguns. I used Americal Gryphon Gotha painted nightbomber camouflage, approx. 2 sheets to cover the whole kit. It was rigged with Stainless steel wire. I ended up selling it on Ebay after moving to a small apartment. Unfortunately during shipping to the new owner the upper wing broke loose. I ended up repairing it by pinning all of the struts and using invisible thread to make functional rigging which held up during the final shipment. The last photo shows the repair in progress and you can also see Udet's D.VII on the work bench, I have since bought the Hippo kit and also a Copper State G.II one but do not forsee having the room to assemble either one at the present time.


Halberstadt CL.II

Kit: Tom's Modelworks (1:48)

Halberstadt CL.II from the Tom's Modelworks 1/48 - Interior was scratchbuilt with weapons flares & bombs from Koster's Hannover kit. The prop and gun ring are wooden items made by Martin Digmayer. The markings for Schlasta 26B were hand painted. Lozenge is Aeromaster 5 color that came with the kit. The scummeled paint scheme was done using several colors, and stippled with a clipped brush to get the spotty effect. This plane won first place in rigged aircraft at the Spring 1999 Wings & Wheels show.


K&B Aurora Pfalz D.III

Kit: K&B (1:48)

This is another of my first World War 1 kits that I built around 1992 using a mint K&B kit from 1972. I added scratchbuilt interior details, photoetched seatbelts, Aeroclub engine, gun muzzles & wheels, and a hand carved prop. Not bad for my second or third WW1 aircraft. It is painted as the Jasta 10 aircraft flown by Vzfw. Hecht. Of course as soon as I finished building the rare old kit, Glencoe decided to reissue it in the mid 1990's!


Udet's Siemens Schukert D.III

Kit: Eduard (1:48)

This is the Eduard Siemens Schuckert D.III per the posting about Dan-San Abbott's remarks on Udet's D.III. I looked at the photos in the Datafile, and I agree with him. The wings were overpainted red, some of the darker lozenges tend to show through. I overpainted the lozenge on my already completed Eduard kit with Humbrol Crimson. I already had the white rudder. The kit is basically out of box, with an Atlee resin engine & seat, and posed ailerons. The control stick is tilted to reflect the ailerons.


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