Thanks Alan, Tim, Alexis and Willem
I just thought of something. Were the Vickers guns mounted on the left side to counter the torque of the radial engine?
I have no idea Tim, but that's very plausible thinking......
I've finished most of the interior parts. The Aviattic additions are delightful, the peach basket seat and the control column with twin triggers in particular are superb. They also provide replacement magneto switch (?), mixture control and oil pulsometer. I was confused because there are two pulsometers included in the set, one has the bulb moulded in situ, the other doesn't so that you can add it from stretched sprue or a Taurus set. The set also includes an ammo box with tachometer, which is missing from the Roden kit. The Roden kit includes an incorrect instrument panel which should not be used. The Roden fuel tank needs to be cut down to fit behind the Aviattic ammo box but I will probably leave it out as I don't think it will be visible anyway.
You might notice I used black EZ Line for the interior rigging. This is because I found a reference in the 1917 "Notes on Rigging" published by the US Army Air Service which states that internal bracing wires that cannot be reached for regular greasing should be lacquered, and the photos of the Carlson rebuild of the original Nie 28 seem to show these wires being quite dark. But I don't really know if I am correct here.....
The wood colour turned out darker than I intended for the plywood that was used on the original, but I can live with that. Very little can be seen through the cockpit opening anyway.....
Note that I used some of the photoetch elements from the Part set in a couple of areas (for example the shoulder boards). The Aviattic set also includes some nice 3D buckles for the seat belts which will be the next job.
