Central Powers Aircraft Model Images
by Bucky Sheftall

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Albatros D.III

I think this plane looks like a flying Oktoberfest tent. Maestro, crank up the oompah-pah!!! In any case, it's my first Eduard "dark grey" plastic (the stuff they've been using on the kits they've put out in the last year or so) WW1 kit and it's a WINNER! Beautiful quality. No more jokes about crappy simple injection kits. This baby went together without a hitch. So, whaddaya say? Should we start a Wish List for Eduard? Anyone for a Halberstadt C.IV? And where's this Walfisch everyone's been screaming about? BTW, radiator pipes are bent brass rod (technique fully detailed on my website). Decals are Aeromaster's "Albatros Pt.2" set, printed up, I believe, back in '95.


Göring's Albatros D.V

This kit is an Eduard, utilizing the superb etched brass included with those kits. Structural wiring is done with magic markered fishing line. Control line or other "show" wiring is done with .1mm stainless steel wire (very expensive!).

The Albatros D.V is Hermann Goering's mount at Jasta 11 before he got his white Fokker D.VII "pimpmobile". The headrest feature is somewhat unusual for an Albatros, apparently. It may have even been order made for Goering, but I'm not sure. I'd appreciate info on that, if anyone has any.


Aviatik Berg D.I

I have been unable to verify the Aviatik colors, as there is a dirth of Austro-Hungarian air force material on the Web, but I think they're pretty outrageous, in any case, and I love the way the plane looks. Also, most sources seem to have Linke-Crawford's "L" marking as white on black. Does anyone know the true story on this? As for the actual application of the fuselage lozenge decal sheets, all I can recommend to everyone is to 1) pray 2) breath slowly and deeply 3) have a big bottle of decal softener on hand. This is white-knuckle modeling at its best, folks. Who needs BASE jumping off Yellowstone cliffs to risk death or arrest when Flashback provides us with such thrills?


Fokker D.VIII/E.V

The Fokker D.VIII/E.V is another early Eduard effort. The brass is excellent, but the injection molding is...well...you all know the drill. 5-color lozenge is Aeromaster. Most non-structural etching was attached onto the lozenge decal with ordinary white glue, then tapped with a drop of cyano. The plastic struts supplied with this kit were far too weak to be of any use at all, so, after careful caliper measurements of the useless struts, I cut up some vise-flattened micro brass piping with a soldered .3mm brass rod core instead. Resulting joints are immensely strong. As the Propagteam cowling decal (and most of the other decals in the kit, BTW) shattered immediately upon being touched, I was forced to go the tape'n'spray method. The ray-pattern on the cowling, however, proved to be far too intricate and precise to be "eyeballed", so I was forced to go to the computer for help! I tape measured circumferences at several cross-sectional points on the cowling, counted up the tips on the box art, then fed everything into Adobe Illustrator and PRESTO! Instant tape stencil! I just lay my tape on top of the stencil, cut away, then taped and sprayed the sucker up. My first CAD-supported model!


Friedrischshafen G.IIIa

Here are some shots of the fabled full-scratch 1/48 Friedrichshafen G.IIIa I've been promising so long.


Hansa-Brandenburg W.29

The Hansa-Brandenburg kit would be a sheer nightmare for anyone who doesn't have at least several years of regular building of simple-injection kits under their belt. First of all, the strut lengths aren't correct. After referral to Windsock Datafile 55 to get the correct spanning spar length between the two floats, I had to re-size all of the remaining float support spars to get the plane to sit correctly. Pretty tedious stuff, and I came close to completely trashing the thing several times. Also, another MAJOR Flashback gaffe (among several others, for example, the lack of window holes in the fuselage flooring) was that the depth of the fuselage in the vicinity of the cockpit is nearly one scale foot too shallow (again, measured against Ray Rimell's data), giving the entire plane a somewhat anemic appearance. As this much of a discrepancy seemed totally unacceptable to me, I deemed it necessary to build a new fuselage bottom from scratch. Details of this process are provided on my homepage. The lozenge is Pegasus' German Naval Lozenge sheet and it is a WINNER. Easy to work with, beautiful color.


Halberstadt Cl.II

This is the Blue Max Halberstadt Cl.II kit.


Hannover

This kit is an Eduard, utilizing the superb etched brass included with those kits. Structural wiring is done with magic markered fishing line. Control line or other "show" wiring is done with .1mm stainless steel wire (very expensive!).

The Hannover was, without a doubt, the most difficult model I have ever built, but it was also a real blast. With the nature of Eduard kits from the early 90s being what it was, it almost built like a vacuum kit, i.e., a semi-scratchbuild when considering all the grinding and sawing required to make it fit together properly. The fishing line wiring in this kit is actually structural, required to keep the wings at the proper angle. Lozenge is Pegasus upper, SuperScale lower. Fuselage is handpainted. Inner fuselage woodwork is done with Gunze lacquer Sand-gelb with colored pencil graining. Prop is carved, cyanoacrylated teak, and all struts are .5mm brass rod-reinforced, cyanoacrylated teak strip (the plastic struts in the kit weren't strong enough to support the structural wiring).


LVG C.VI

Blue Max's LVG C.VI, which was released in 2001. Another fun build thanks to Chris Gannon. No real headaches outside of the rigging (which is my own damned fault for being so nitpicky) and the problems I ran into when the white metal bulkheads didn't fit after I narrowed the fuselage halves to match Datafile (ditto).

Guns are Tom's Modelworks, ammo belt on Parabellum uses Dr. Tom Morgan's technique, as described in his Halberstadt Cl.II build. Instruments and seatbelts are Eduard. Fuselage interior was sprayed a reddish tan, streaked with water-thinned acrylic red brown, then given a Gregg Cooper wash (artists oils heavily thinned with Zippo fluid). Fuselage exterior uses Steve Perry's painted wood decal technique, lifted directly (with his permission, blessings and guidance...ha-ha...) from his own LVG build.

Rigging turnbuckles are functional, i.e., actually load-bearing. Made from 0.15mm copper wire stripped from electrical cord and twisted ring around a .2mm steel rod. The twisted tail on the end of the resulting ring is CA'ed into a .5mm hole on the model. Very strong. Rigging itself is the usual process of threading the rings with nylon line, hemostat clamping, yanking and CA'ing.

I really need pix to explain this...Method for making these was taught to me by Jiro Hashimoto, who is hands down the best WWI modeler in the Far East -- an honor to know the man and be able to call him friend and "sensei".

5-color lozenge is homegrown, thanks to the ALPS printer. On a sad note, this was my last batch of lozenge before suffering the double whammy of having the ALPS going bottoms-up on me AND losing the Illustrator files for the lozenge on my last hard disk crash. Hope I've put them to decent use.

Thanks to all of the listmembers who helped me with info/opinions during this project. Special thanks to Steve Perry, for sharing the secrets of his painted wood decal technique; and to Shane Weier for the Niendorf prop decals from his precious Americal Gryphon sheet!


Siemens-Schuckert D.III

The Siemens-Schuckert D.III was one of Eduard's "early days" WWI efforts, and it builds like it. Considerable bump'n'grind required to put everything together, but in the end, voila, a butt-kicker indeed. Wiring, as usual, is magic-markered fishing line. 5-color lozenge is Aeromaster (EVERYONE WRITE TO AEROMASTER AND TELL THEM TO PRINT UP MORE!!!) and the paint job is mostly Gunze lacquer and Humbrol for the details. Oh, and the wood grain effect was done with a cheap colored pencil. Same technique I used on the fuselage interior of the Hannover (see my homepage), with an overspray of Clear Orange mixed with Smoke Gray. Lozenged strut is painted, not decalled!


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