Hallo, here is my current job on the workbench: SPAD VII of Giorgio Pessi AKA Giuliano Parvis SPAD VII from 91a Squadriglia (8 victories - 6 officially recognized).
Just a few historical notes some of you maybe already know: Giorgio Pessi was born in Trieste, Italian city for a long time under the domination of the Austro / Hungarians. Trieste was the major harbour of the Austro / Hungarian Empire and a wealthy city, but although it was (and still is due to its geographical position) a very cosmopolite town, with a lot of German-speaking people, and people coming from the balcanic provinces of the Empire and Ottomans as well, it had since ever a strong Italian identity.
Giorgio Pessi was a relative of the current major, being the dominating political party of filo-Italian ideals he embraced the cause of redeeming Trieste to the motherland and "escaped" to join the Italian army.
Giorgio Pessi AKA Giuliano Parvis ?Yes, there were many Italians escaping from the occupied lands (such as Trento, Bozen, and Trieste as well) to join the Italian armed forces, and the Austrians used to send them to death for high treason if they were made prisoner.
So, those people were urged by the Italian military command to change their identity not to be recognized and Giorgio Pessi turned to
Giuliano Parvis.
After several different destinations (he started his duty in Cavalry) he was assigned to the already famous 91st squadron (91a Squadriglia) where Capt. Francesco Baracca himself (who had already at least 14 victories) used to select his wingmen.
Giuliano Parvis had all of his victories on a SPAD VII which he decorated with the black half moon and he flew a lot of missions with Baracca. During one of these missions together with his Captain they succeeded in bringing down Oberleutnant Rudolf Szepessy-Sokoll of Flik 41J on is Albatros DR III Oeffag in the north-eastern Italy.
On the rudder of the SPAD VII flown by Giuliano Parvis there are two different serial numbers: 1544 and 4707.
This was due to the fact that the piece was reused from a dismissed SPAD and they kept the old S/N simply adding below it the new (and official) S/N 4707... So 2 names and 2 S/N!
Here is the box
The sprues look very good, no flashes and no meaningful extraction points, the details are crisp and well proporioned
Some parts of the kit are resin cast:
PE parts represent the seat belts and some parts of the controls,
This is my inspirational book: Italian aces of the Great War (by the Italian Air Force Documentation Services).
I have also bought this PE Part set...
I started working on the cockpit, I do not like the resin cockpit sides, the fake rigging is awful
so I tried to keep just the wooden struts and tried to empty the space in between, but the piece is so brittle it broke... And I decided to make the cockpit sides from scratch and keep some elements extracting them from the resins
Here is s first "dry" assembly of the fuselage with cockpit pieces
I started some colour test:
And at the moment I decided to go with
Misterkit #FR03 French Light Yellow for the CDL and
Misterkit #FR04 Clear Doped Linen for the darker shade of the nose both metal and linen sections.
Up to now I have completed the 4 sides of the cockpit.
Then I have painted the fuselage interiors dividing it in Linen and metal following the panel lines visible on the external side.
Here is the result before painting the metal (must re shoot the picture, sorry!)
OK, that's all for now, thanks for your attention!
Antonio
