New 1/72 Albatros D.III Oeffag from Encore (ex-Roden)

[Jamo]

Saw this in Hannant's Hot News email:

Albatros D.III (OEF). KOSCIUSZKO ALBATROS 'COOPER' WWI era Austro-Hungarian Albatros D.III (OEF) S.253 fighter evolved from a German design in Polish service and flown by American Merian C. Cooper against the Bolshevik Russians. The kit features a well rendered injection-molded airframe (ex-Roden tool) with Austro-Daimler engine, fine 'fabric over frame' effects and cockpit interior - all enhanced with resin parts (exhaust stubs, forward bulkhead, machine gun receivers, tires/wheel rims, axle pins, wire wheel form) and photo-etch detail upgrades (cockpit floor, rear bulkhead, seatbelts, instrument panels, fuselage vents, inspection covers, radiator faces, undercarriage strap, wire wheel disks). Colorful decals are provided for Cooper's 'White 5', serial S.253.218 during the winter to early summer of 1919-1920 including dizzying 4-color 'sworl' camouflage and Polish-American Kościuszko squadron badges.



Price EU area £19.99, outside EU area £16.66

[IanB]

I saw this one and I'm sorely tempted, even though it's not WWI. What a great colour scheme, and the unusual subject (American pilot in the Polish/Russian war) being fairly unknown too.....

Ian

[ALBATROS1234]

i do 1/48/1/32 and i bought one from a local hobbyshop. it has photoetch seatbelts,radiator covers, control panels(all 3 that are in an oef albie) all of the hatches and louvers ,control horns.bulkhead/floor,spoked wheels etc. then theres the awesome resin parts consisting of swarzlose guns, ammo box/bulkhead,exhaust pipes and resin tires. even a neat resin cone thingy made to shape your spokes for the wheels. cool catch by encore they made the inner and outer spokes diff sizes so that the outer will have a more pronounced conical shape. the decals look nice, theres nice guage decals, and the swirl fabric decals( which imho should be a tad brownerrather than greener )have white areas so the polish checkerboards will look solid and the swirl wont bleed thru. all in all i was so impressed i paid the $24.99 and i am gonna dothis as my first 1/72 build. actually close to closing up the fuselage. the only things i felt compelled to add was the greaser pump and the control stick handgrip is th type used on german d.iii albies so i scratched that to. all in all if you add those 2 scratched items i just mention it looks like a mini eduard oef interior. they did their homework on this one. not saying its perfect, but one of the most detailed 1/72 ww1 kitset i have seen. i highly suggest it to 1/72 biplane fans. truly if you have other oeffag albie decals you can use this kit to make a great oef albie period in 1/72.

have a look:http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/kits/encore/kit_encore_72103.shtml

http://squadronblog.com/2013/09/30/preview-coopers-kosciuszko-albatros-by-encore/