Deperdussin Monocoque 1912 AJP Maquettes, 1/48Some years ago I built the
Demoiselle from a 1/48 kit of the french company AJP Maquettes. Today I would like to show you another AJP kit that contains everything - but no plastic!
I didn't know the name Deperdussin for a long time, until a friend mentioned it. Then there was a special offer at AJP and this little racer appealed to me.
The original was a French racing monoplane. It was the first airplane that flew faster than 200 km/h. It was already impressively modern for its time. The fuselage was a light shell construction made of wood, wings and tail unit covered with fabric. It was equipped with a 160 HP 14-cylinder rotary engine, which is composed of two 7-cylinders.
More about the original can be found at Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deperdussin_MonocoqueBox contents: Let's open the flat cardboard box!
A thin, translucent cover paper:
White metal parts, the quality was worse on the other kit. Probably won't use much of it anyway.
Further in the material mix, aluminium foil, windscreen foil, "Piano-wire" (great material, stable, but can be soldered) and a nail?
Cowling made of resin. Not a great cast, irregular, not round at the back. Hole in front not centered. I will probably have to make a new one.
The highlight: a relatively large PE sheet 0.2mm thick. Unlike the Demoiselle kit normal alloy, which can be soldered
Cleanly etched on both sides:
A manual as 8 pages A5 booklet, french/english, black/white, but with red tension ropes.
An extra page about the history is unfortunately only available in french.
A small printed picture in color, how the plane could look like.
And where is the fuselage, in case anyone wondered?
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This is also a highlight!
A "turned" piece of beech wood - not really turned, because the tail is not round. The slot for the tailplane and the many mounting holes are already made, although a bit larger than necessary.
The small part is an optional headrest.
From the front the fuselage is drilled out for the interior and the cockpit opening is also milled out. As the wall is very thin, the area around the holes has been reinforced with epoxy or similar, but only from the inside! So a stain outside should not be a problem.
This real multimedia kit has light and shadow! The etched parts and the wooden hull are certainly the highlight, other parts can't keep up. Had I perhaps only had luck? In an older report a wooden hull was mentioned, on scalemates a resin fuselage was reported.
The reference situation is also difficult. Unfortunately I can't access the Flightglobal Archive
There are different variants, with many differences in details, span and shapes. There is still one original in a french museum, the kit seems to be close to this version - but it is painted over everything! I would be tempted to leave the fuselage wooden, with translucent canvas, but the pictures of it look a bit different.
If necessary I will build a WhatIf
So, if anyone has any information, please speak up!
I think I need to scratch some parts and add some accessories
Someone like to follow this build?
Cheers,
Frank
