Hello,
waiting for some aftermarket parts to finish my Albatros C. III, I started my new project. It's quite a long time that I wanted a Maurice Farman, because it is one of the most important aircraft in the French WWI-airforce and was widely used at Verdun 1916, but there are no kits in 1/48 as far as I know. So there was only one solution: scratchbuilding. Sadly there are no books covering the MF 11 in debth, no datafile and no printed scale plans. But I found many pictures and drawings of the MF 11 on the internet, mainly of the classic MF 11 "Shorthorn" variant. I even got some old but prettily done scale plans from a magazine from the 1960ies in my hands.
Davila and
Soltan, French Aircraft of the First World War offer some scale plans too.
Although the MF 11 seems to be used well into 1916 (by MF 72 for example), I wanted to build the upgraded version of this airplane, the MF 11 bis, equipped with a modernized fuselage. It had something like a visor at the front of the nacelle and pilot and observer had changed places: The observer sat at the front and managed the machine gun: a more modern configuration for 1916 times. Going deeper into research of MF variants, I realized that the devil lies in the detail here too: There were more than 60 differences of the MF. 7, MF 11 and F 40 versions, I read. Oh my god...
They used different engines in the MF 11 and the MF 11 bis, a Renault V8 and a Renault V12. I had no scale plans for the V12, just for the V8... Some plans showed the fuselage with the V12 being longer than the one with a V8, which seems to be quite logical. Other drawings showed an "upgraded" MF 11 with visor but as short as the MF 11 fuselage and equipped with a V8. The dimensions of the planes were the same as well. Finaly I found out, that such versions actually existed – MF 11s with visors. So I decided to go with that. And in fact, I was lucky to find a picture of a MF 11 equipped with a Renault V8 engine AND a visor on Denis Albins much praised homepage. And I even had a serial number! This machine flew with escadrille MF 2 in April 1916 at the Verdun-front: MF 11 no 1338. That's all I wanted. So I could start without going too deep in the mentioned 60 differences, which maybe might have scared off kitmakers and authors too. Taking a close look at the picture it is obvious that this very machine had a Renault V8 engine (so it is a MF 11, not a MF 11 bis) and comparing the dimensions (including the different angle, the pic was taken) I'm convinced that it had the normal MF11-dimensions. If you are better informed than I am, please correct me (and please do it BEFORE I finish that model
)
So here's the picture, taken from
http://albindenis.free.fr/Site_escadrille/escadrille002.htm
(If you take a close look at the engine, you can see the four cylinders. If it were a MF 11 bis, it should have six cylinders on each side...)
I deciced to start with the engine because I was a little frightened of scratchbuilding an engine. Please don't be too critical, it is my first try and it is not finished yet...
Next step was the planes. Here I added 1mm brass rod to prevent the planes from sagging. I made two parts of each wing, sandwiched them with the brass rod in between (I carved a chamfer for it before) and taped them onto a poster tube to receive curved wings when the clue cured. I'll post some images later (when it worked...), I'll leave that taped wings for a week or so to set.
Best wishes
Borsos
