Today was a very significant anniversary for this particular Zeppelin:
It was shot down 98 years ago today.
On the morning of 21st August 1917, Zeppelin L23 was sighted by a squadron of British ships taking part in minelaying operations near Hvide Sande. HMS Yarmouth, having been fitted with a special "fly off" platform, launched one of her Beardmore built Sopwith Pups flown by Second Lieutenant B.A.Smart. As the aircraft was launched, L23 tried to dodge, but Smart raced flat out at 110mph to a height of 9000'. Smart dropped to 7000' before diving to 6000' to strafe the Zeppelin with incendiary rounds. As Smart broke off his attack, he saw the Zeppelin going down in flames, its nose pointed at the sky at an angle of 45 degrees. The flames spread quickly up the L 23, leaving only the nose intact when it hit the sea.
One crew member, probably a gunner from the front end of the airship, managed to parachute from the burning airship, only to drown as no ships were in the area to effect a rescue.
The body of the sail master Johan Schüttrup washed ashore September 3, 1917 at Vigsø Strand in Thy and was buried in Vigsoe cemetery. The clothes were labeled Schüttrup 10,423th. His gravestone reads "He died for his German fatherland".
A putrefying corpse was found on 15 September 1917 in Søndervig and was buried in New parish cemetery. It was believed to be the remains of machine sailor Johannes / Hans Buhr, identified because the name 'H. Buhr 'was found on a metal plate on the corpse's belt. There is a gravestone in his honor at the cemetery in Harboøre.
Many other unidentified corpses drifted ashore on the west coast at the time, who may have been crew from L 23.
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With no provision for landing back on ship, Smart had to ditch his aircraft, but was picked up safely. The Pup however, could not be recovered.
This was the first time an aircraft had taken off from a moving ship to engage the enemy.
In order to celebrate(?), I started work on the Pup. (I figured I had best not tempt fate with the Zeppelin today
)
The Pup is a two-pack from Valom. Ironically, it was this thing, bought off a friend for, like, $5 that started the whoooole saga. I'd been toying with the idea for several months, bought the kit, saw that a Zepp had been shot down by a Pup and figured, 'well I've got the Pup, might as well do the Zeppelin to go with it.' I tend to jump into things somewhat hastily...
Anyway. The kit itself is pretty basic, with a rather hand-made feel to the masters. A bit of a throwback to older Central/Eastern European limited run kits. The plastic comes in the form of a credit card sized sprue of parts for the airframe; you get two sprues to build two Pups, but Valom could easily have fit eight in the box...
...along with two postage stamp sized PE frets for struts, the tail skid and control column. They're okay - not terribly crisp, but they'll do the job.
And a single small decal sheet with markings for three British and one Japanese airframe.
As I said, it's a simple kit. Detail's pretty sparse, so if you were expecting something on par with Revell or Eduard's recent 1/144 kits, you'll be pretty disappointed. This is what passes for cockpit detail (plus a seat, but nothing on the sidewalls):
Which I guess is fair enough, but the instructions are *hilariously* optimistic, given the actual plastic. Case in point, the kit seat is somewhat simpler than the instruction drawings would suggest:
As is the gun:
Which brings us to my planned improvements. I'll probably modify one of my 1/144 Spandaus instead of using the kit part. Yes, it's completely wrong, but compared the the kit part it's a big step up. I've also has some 1/144 wicker seats printed; no idea what they look like, but I mostly just want to stick it to WNW.
I've also printed a replacement engine, since the kit part is a.) crappy looking and b.) not symmetrical (again: hand made masters)
The first step, however, was to fix the ribs. Valom depicted the ribs with recessed panel lines. These are waaay too heavy in 1/144, and - yet again because it's hand made - are completely uneven and out of alignment. Notice how the spacing is somewhat arbitrary, and several of the lines are crooked. So I slathered on a coat of Mr. Surfacer, let it cure then sanded away the excess. I'll likely pencil in the ribs once the paint is on - should be much subtler.
Also note that the cutout in the middle isn't actually centred - it's offset to one side. I have a feeling that may become a major headache...
Next, I filled the divots for locating the struts with some CA. The divots were massive and wouldn't create a positive fit, but if I just filled them with Surfacer, it would lead to a weaker glue bond come final assembly, so I drilled out the Surfacer for a much more robust CA-on-styrene bond.
The CA was smoothed out, then I marked the locating points, scribed the control surfaces and drilled out a few holes.
