Thanks, Zac, and glad you've joined the monoplane cult! I understand the Airfix kit is a lot better than the little 1:72 Revell version I built—in Ottoman Turk markings—back in the early 1970s.
Other aspects of the project have been occupying the past several weeks, but work progresses and I've finally been able to put some time in on the cockpit:
I added the rudder and gun-trigger cables, and began some oil-staining on the Aviattic French Linen decals on the cockpit walls. In the
real aeroplane, the turnbuckles in the front bays were actually bound with what looks to be either strips of fabric or leather, presumably to avoid catching on the pilot's clothing, but this is the first use of test copies of the six-inch 3D printed turnbuckles my sons and I are developing and I just didn't have the heart to cover them up
I decided
not to add the elevator control-lock at the base of the column, reasoning that it was developed to allow the pilot to have both hands free to deal with gun jams according to Peter Grosz in
WWI Aero; since the E.I was a first-gen weapons system I doubt the need for something like that had become clear yet. I may be wrong, if anybody knows for sure please LMK.
Finally, my son Curt was at the local Barnes & Nobel a couple of weeks ago and, seeing that the then-current issue of
Model Airplane International featured a build of the WnW E.II, bought it for me. I finally got around to reading the article the other day; my first thought was "Wow! What a fantastic build!" Then I glanced at the author's name, and burst out laughing, it was our own Gary Edmundson... whose build log of this very model I have bookmarked, and which, along with Prze's E.I and Tim Mixon's double-build of the Navy E.IIIs, pretty much inspired this whole epic project. Grab the issue if you still can!
Unfortunately the entire article is flagged as a 1:48 build on the page headers, but I guess the editors missed that!
Dutch
