So, the aircraft would be upside down: perfect, I thought, because I didn't fancy building a proper cockpit to replace the utterly unreal Academy 'space'. Very naive of me, I didn't consider two areas which become very visible on the underside, behind the engine, and at the tail around the tailskid.
As regards the tailskid, I picked a spare one from a Roden Camel kit (I also purloined two spare Vickers guns - honestly, these are noticeably better than the originals), and dug out the under tail area to more closely resemble the actual plane. And noticed something that I hadn't before, that the Camel had a couple of control lines to steer the tail skid, so I did those as well.
But one feature I think is really characteristic of the Camel is the scoop or cut out behind the engine, entirely absent in the Academy kit. So, at the risk of derision, I took the same area from that Roden kit and inserted it here, and added the cross bracing etc. I know, I know, this sounds ridiculous, maybe making a better kit unbuildable in order to improve a worse one? The thing is, it was the TF.1 Trench Fighter Camel kit. This aircraft did happen to have armour plate covering up that 'scoop', so hopefully if I did ever decide to build it, it wouldn't matter.
Mark