G'day.
I've fixed up most of the damage to my Pfalz but have to wait until I can get back up to the farm to re-spray the underside and paint a replacement cross on the lower starboard wing. It's a 270km round trip (about 1.5 hours each way), but there's no room in my flat for my compressor and airbrush. Besides, I like an excuse to go and see my horse and escape the city
.
So I continued doing some detail work on the Spad cockpit. There's a great series of cockpit photo's at
http://memorial.flight.free.fr/SpadXIIIuk.html and they show just how bare the kit cockpit is. I also bought the Datafile, which gave me a better insight into how the cockpit and floor should look. I'd sprayed the fuselage insides last time I was up at the farm using Humbrol 103, which seems to be a fair match for the yellowish French CDL.
Armed with some spare sprue, a Waldron punch, Airscale instrument decals and some etched bits and spare fret from Uncle Tom's, I did some scratch building yesterday, adding some of the detail that will be visible in the cockpit. Unfortunately the Airscale decals don't match the instruments in the cockpit, but I've use the equivalents from the sheet. Also, the thickness of the plastic means that I had a lot of fettling to get my scratch-built stuff to fit. The results aren't perfect by any means, but they give the impression of a much busier cockpit than Hobbycraft give you.
Now to add the fuselage bracing wires, the oil lines and some other bits and piece (like the joy stick) and I can close up the fuselage, ready for painting. Then I'll decide whether to extend the wings (for Baracca's aircraft) or do this one as a French aircraft and wait for WNW to release a Spad XIII. I'll be getting FCM's sheet for Baracca's aircraft in any case, once it's re-released, and will need to find some for this kit if I choose not to extend the wings- an on line review said the markings included for Gutnemer's aircraft are also for the earlier version with rounded wingtips.
Cheers.
Dal.
