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Kit: Eduard (1:48)
Here is the vintage Eduard Nieuport 17 profipack kit, modified slightly to the later Nieuport 23. It is the aircraft flown by Belgian ace Edmund Thiffery. The interior had a scratchbuilt ammo box, and the gun was mounted to the right of the centerline. The cowling was modified with a sheet styrene circle around the opening and ribs where the panels were seperated. I embossed rivet detail into these ribs. The metal parts were painted Floquil Bright silver. The aluminum doped areas were sprayed with Floquil Old silver, which drys very hard and can be easily masked over. I masked all of the upper surface ribs and gave them a spray of Olive Drab, then applied the Belgian cockades from Americal Gryphon. A lighter coat of olive drab was applied over the cockades and rib tapes until they could just barely be seen through the paint. The red shooting star decal was scanned from a profile, resized and printed on a color laser printer. The white wheel covers and circle on the turtle deck were sprayed white and masked off, the red stripes were done with Microscale trim film decals. Rigging was ceramic "Wonder wire" with stretched plastic Q-tips for turnbuckles. Photoetched parts from Part were used for the Vickers gun, and interior was detailed with the kit photoetched parts and wires.
Kit: Edurard (1:72)
This kit was built last year for an online contest for out of the box builds of the Eduard 1/72 scale kit without photoetched parts. It was painted in the markings of Guynemers N.1530 which had the wings from an earlier camouflaged plane applied to the newer aluminum fuselage. I did the wing outlines and the overpainted cellon center section in horizon blue as described by Alan Toelle in Windsock. The green and brown were WW2 French colors. Used stretched sprue from kit for rigging, making it truely out of the box.
This is the Nieuport 11 flown by Victor Chapman one of the founding members of N.124,the Escadrille Americane. He was flying this aircraft while wounded on June 17, 1916 but was able to land it. Unfortunately, on June 23 he was shot down and killed, becoming the first American aviator to be killed in WW1. the model is the Eduard profipack kit. Additions include a resin seat with harness, and resin foot boards above the floor. I added a clear sprue oil pulsator, and a resin Lewis MK 1 gun from GasPatch models. It is painted with MisterKit acrylic French yellow, except for the camouflaged replacement wing. Rigging was done with E-Z line and Bob's Buckles, a first for me. The decals on the wheels, all stencils, and prop logos are hand made, and the american cockades on the upper wing were overpainted in the darker French blue as used at this time.
Kit: Roden (1:32)
Here is a model of Herschel J. McKee's Nieuport 24 from Feb. 1918. It is the Roden 1/32 scale kit basically out of the box. Like most Roden kits I had issues with ill-fitting parts but it looks like a Nieuport 24 when done. I made the decals by scanning a profile in an old issue of windsock and editing it to fit, then printing on clear decal paper. The star on the wheel cover was masked and painted. I used wire to make turnbuckles and the gun cocking handle.
Kit: Blue Max (1:48)
Here is one of the Blue Max kits released by Chris Gannon in the early 1990's. This was the first one that I built, long before the Eduard kit was released. It was built out of the box with a decent amount of white metal details and nice thin wings and flying surfaces. I painted it to represent the N.11 flown by Navarre at Verdun in 1916, based on a profile in the book Aces and Aircraft of World War I by Christopher Campbell. I added the black outlines to the wings and tail which have since been determined to be Horizon blue, but in the early 1990's I did not have much information to go on. It still looks like a Nieuport 11 and lets me remember the early days of my building WW1 aircraft.
Here is my reworked model of Nungesser's N.1490 that he flew while attached to N.124 Lafayette in 1916. I had completed the eduard profipack kit a couple of years ago but then saw a photo of the aircraft in Over the Front that showed the upper center section was clear cellon covered. Of course I had used the solid center section wing in my original build. Luckily I had an extra Eduard wing with open center section and removed the original one, repainted the new one, added internal structure and covered it with cellophane from a pack of cigarettes, as close to real clear cellon as you can get. I hand painted the fuselage and camouflage in slightly lighter shades than my original build, and reattached all of the ceramic rigging wires to complete it - for the second time.
Kit: Tom's Modelworks (1:48)
Here is another old one from the 1990's, the Tom's Modelworks Nieuport 25 as flown by Nungesser in 1917. I scratchbuilt the experimental 200hp Clerget 11B engine, although it may have never been used by Nungesser. I hand painted the French tricolor bands on the wings and fuselage to match the Americal Gryphon decals. the black heart was a home made decal done on a black photocopier and applied over a white painted heart. I also made the black Type 25 and N 1895 numbers. Unfortunately at this time I did not have good references on Nieuport aluminum finishes, and it was painted a light gray. a few years later I tried drybrushing it aluminum but it gives it a weathered dirty appearance, not the nice aluminum dope finish that it should have. One of these days I will maybe repaint it to look more authentic but i want to avoid repainting all of the stripes.
Kit: Aurora (1:48)
1/48 scale KB/Aurora kit
Another of my early builds done around 1992-1993. Used lots of white metal parts from Aeroclub for guns & engine, scratchbuilt interior and added ribs from chartpack tape (they look too thick but was my first try at that) I used the decals and poster from Lone Star. All hand painted with no real references except for buying my first Windsock Datafile.
Kit: Eduard/Spin conversion (1:48)
This is a conversion of the experimental Nieuport Triplane built in 1916. Three were built, the earliest was tested by France and the other two were given to the British. The French version is the subject of this model, as it had several differences from the British ones. Most notably, it had the early Nieuport camouflage, as used on N.16 and early N.17s. It was also armed with a Lewis gun, and had different ailerons. The kit uses the Eduard N.17 fuselage, which I added some scratchbuilt interior parts to and an engine from the DML Fokker DR.1, as this more accurately represented the 110hp LeRhone than the kit engine did. Spin provided resin wings and struts. I scratchbuilt the ailerons, and followed the color scheme for the early Nieuports as described by Alan Toelle in Windsock International magazine. This shows undersurfaces in light sky blue, and uppersurfaces in 4 shades of green and brown in a sprayed on camouflage pattern. The flying surfaces were outlined in Horizon blue, as well as the metal struts and control rods. Decals are home made for the roundels and prop logos, while this aircraft had no stencils on the rudder. A great way to add a rare prototype to my Nieuport collection.