Nieuport 17bis
Now for the most difficult conversion. With this plane,
the manufacturers got away from the square fuselage incorporating
the spar and fabric, "round" type. I would suppose that the
easiest way to model this one would be to sand down quite a lot of
the fuselage, adding spars and stretching .005" plastic card over
the spars.
An even easier way to model this plane is to purchase the
Rosemont replacement 17bis fuselage and follow the instructions
included. There also appears to be two "corrections" to the
Rosemont fuselage. The same wedge still needs to be added to the
rear portion of the fuselage as the ESCI Nie17 kit, and the exhaust
channel will need to be added to the front. The rest of the ESCI
kit still needs to be brought up to 17 standards.
Nieuport Triplane
This is an odd looking plane guaranteed to raise a few
eyebrows and spark a few comments. For this conversion, the
easiest thing to do is buy two ESCI kits. Seems like such a waste
for what you'll use the other kit for, but it is quicker and
easier. You will use the two wings from the second kit to make
the middle and top wing of the Triplane. That's it. That's all
you'll need from the second kit. Granted, the shape of the wings
are quite different, but shouldn't be much of a hassle to correct.
Besides needing to make new struts for the wings, and finding
markings for the aircraft, you are done with this conversion.
Remember, however, you will need to get the rest of the kit up to
17.C.1 standards. However, I have not done this conversion, and
everything here is based on studying the drawings and the kit.
There were two variants of the Triplane. A "regular"
version and a bis version. To forgo the fuselage modifications up
to 17 standards, you could purchase Rosemont's replacement
fuselages for either the bis or the "regular" version. For more
information, refer to the paragraph on making the 17 and 17bis
above, as well as Windsock International, Vol. 7 No. 2.
You may also forget about these conversions. Rosemont has
released a resin kit of the Triplane, so you can purchase that and
have a complete kit.