wholeftr by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
lft-ft by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
MSBigcockcockpit by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
rigDet by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
1/32 Special Hobby Morane Saulnier N
Paints: Golden High Flow; Gamblin Fast Matte Oils; Iwata Com.Art, Sennelier Pigments
Rigging: Gaspatch white metal attachment points; Gaspatch resin Type C turnbuckles; 2lb P-Line mono
Here is my rendition of the Special Hobby 1/32 Morane Saulnier N. It was an interesting subject because it possesses what we used to call true "funk appeal" and it was the starter fighter (as the Morane "Bullet") if you played an allied "career game" in the beloved Sierra flight sim Red Baron.
It's also a very good example of the break neck speed at which aviation advanced before (especially) and during the Great War. The original MS-N flew in 1913 as a racing plane and a handful were in service with the AM in August 1914. So figure ten years after Kitty Hawk, or two years after Bleriot. And in 1915 the French stuck a machine gun on it to fire through a type of armored prop. There were two MSN "aces" (or believed to be aces) and for a brief moment the MSN and the more successful MS-L (flown by Garros) gave the French a very local dominance in the air - until Anthony Fokker rained in the parade. The type N carried an 80 HP Le Rhone and allowing it to do 90mph. The Brits got a few of these, so did the Russians (and so did the Bolshies - there's a pic of a wildly weathered and marked Soviet MSN - looks very neat).
I don't think the plane could be called a great success as only about 60 were built. The original MSN employed wing warping. It was also a monoplane and thus had very high wing loading which made it a pretty "hot" plane for its moment. (There's a very neat YouTube 60 second video of an original MNS being pushed out of the hangar, mounted - with difficulty - by the pilot - and taking off very quickly and spewing dust and exhaust.) So it was sensitive to the controls and hard to land. It was also a very small plane - Cecil Lewis estimated that pilots couldn't be over 5'6" to cram themselves in. So the bird was not beloved by its pilots - never good news for a warplane. The plane perhaps had a greater potential. Variations on the theme culminated in the MS AC in 1916. This plane had a 110 HP Le Rhone, ailerons, redesigned frame and wings and a synchronized MG. By 1916 the type had dispensed with the "bullet" spinner allowing the plane to run cooler. Apparently the performance was pretty good, but when the AC was flying so was the Nieuport 17 and soon the Spad VII. So much for the Bullet. Bristol built the M1 scout that had a real "Bullet" look, and flew nicely, but fell afoul of biplane dominance.
This is was a very challenging build. I made several errors - but I won't them again, so the build was in that way a success. All of the woeful details are in the "In Construction" forum. Suffice it to say I'm thinking that these planes would have had many hours in the air because the need was extreme in 1915-16 and their rotaries were pouring out about a gallon of castor oil per hour. Add to that the effect of the elements, dirt and mud from the aerodromes of the time, and I thought some liberal weathering was in order. That's at least what I saw after looking at photos and thinking the situation over. Mileage may vary for others. Photos below.
Eric
rightDet by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
fuseDet by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
rt-ft by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
right-r by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
right by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
rear by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
lft-r by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
lft-f2 by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr
left by
Eric Bergerud, on Flickr