Hello everyone,
Here are some pictures of my latest completion, the Encore (Roden) 1/72 Pfalz D.III. This is their “Blue Max” boxing, which depicts the aircraft flown by Ltn Bruno Stachel (George Peppard) in the 1966 movie “The Blue Max”. If you haven’t seen this aviation classic, I strongly recommend it.
The kit was built with the addition of the PART photo-etched set. The kit itself is a bit rough around the edges, and requires a bit of refinement, but it looks like a Pfalz. The Lozenge decal is from Aviatik, and presents some better colours than those included in the kit. These decals are excellent; translucent (which makes them good for pre-shading), very thin, durable, and able to be contorted across compound curves (mostly). This was especially useful given the compound curves of the fuselage; I didn’t get it perfect but I was happy enough in the end. Rigging is from Uschi brand elastic.
I didn’t go for a ‘movie perfect’ model; rather, I built is as a ‘normal’ Pfalz (though I did mix up the D.III and D.IIIa parts, deliberately), with the markings broadly representative of the movie aircraft.
Here’s some pics of the model:
I also decided it would be cool to mount this one to a more appropriate base:
I added a pilot from the spares box, with a rather stern looking head from an Airfix BE-2C crewman, and a scarf made from foil. I tried to replicate a spinning propeller, but nothing I tried or looked at really looked convincing, so I simply made a prop-less spinner from scrap plastic.
Overall this was a fun little build. Good hunting, herr Leutnant!
