Hi folks,
It's been far too long since I last posted here. Partly due to some WWII projects I've had on the go (and still do, a new mould Airfix Heinkel III and the venerable old Fairey Battle, which has been corrected as necessary, ie a lot!), but mainly because last year I relocated from USA to UAE and didn't do much of anything modelling wise.
During the course of that relocation, the Pfalz E.IV I built a few years back got damaged. I decided that the rebuild/renovation would be more interesting if I built the AZ models E.I alongside it, so that's what I did.
If anyone's interested in seeing what was needed, here's the build log.
https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235049619-a-pfair-of-pfalz-eiv-restoration-az-models-ei/The result was the two models you see below.
They are both 1:72 scale, and both heavily modified from the basic kit. The E.I has scratchbuilt wings and tail surfaces, while the E.IV's are heavily modified kit parts, and both have scratchbuilt undercarriage. Part PE was used for the E.IV guns and the E.I has a MiniWorld gun.
Before the war, Pfalz had obtained a licence to built Morane-Saulniers, and that's what they continued to do after the war broke out. (It is said they made good on every penny they owed M-S after the war!). So all the early Pfalz aircraft were basically Moranes, and that is what they were called by the German pilots who flew them. They were also called "flying death notices", due not just to their black outlined wings and fuselages, but also because they were regarded as "difficult" and the early models suffered quite a few tailplane structural failures, many with fatal consequences. The E.I had an 80hp Oberursel U.0 rotary engine and the various models following that basically had bigger engines and wings, to the E.IV which had a 160hp Oberursel U.III engine. There were a few E.Vs with in line engines but that was basically it as Pfalz had not put any effort into designing their own aircraft and by mid 1916 the old M-S design was well outdated. The company continued on building aircraft under licence from other manufacturers (Roland for example) but they did not build their own aircraft again until the D.III came into service in 1917.
The E.I depicted here served in Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania). The serial number on the fuselage is correct as per photos, at least on the port side. I'm not sure if the way I have shown it on the right side is correct as I had to move the cross forward slightly. It would make more sense to have the "/15" in front of the cross, but who knows whether it was or not.
The E.IV depicts an aircraft flown by Rudolf Bertholt whilst with Kampfeinsitzer (literally battle single-seater) Kommando, Vaux, based in Vaux, on the Somme, France in April 1916. He suffered serious injuries when the Pfalz reputation caught up with him and he spun it in from 100 metres. He survived that, and quite a few other injuries received during the war, only to be killed in political street fighting in Hamburg in 1920. He was so badly beaten he couldn't be identified physically. I guess that's what you get when the civilians you're shooting at catch you!
Anyway, here they are...
They look quite comfortable next to each other in the cabinet!
I hope you like them!
Ian