1/72 Hanriot HD 1 conversion from Airfix Sopwith Camel

[lone modeller]

Evening All,

This is a blast from the past - a response to a question from a modeller on another site. I told him that I had made a model with the thistle insignia of an Hanriot HD 1 as flown by the Belgian ace Willi Coppens. I believe that the thistle was his personal marking on the fuselage. The model was converted from the Airfix Sopwith Camel following an article by G. Scarborough(?) in Airfix Magaine around 1970. This was my first or second completed biplane conversion and involved a bit of cutting and reshaping of the wings and fuselage, and a new tail. The markings are hand painted, (there were no transfers available at the time I made this in the mid-1970's), and it is rigged with stretched sprue. I suspect that the interpretation of the markings has changed too but it was all that I had available to me at the time. I know too that there are good kits available for this type now (and in God's Own Scale), so this conversion is an anachronism which sits in one of my cabinets to remind me what I was doing in an earlier modelling incarnation. Please do not look too closely at the pictures or compare it with Andonio's splendid models of the same type or you will see all of the obvious deficiencies - just think of it as an example of how times and the availability of kits has changed.... it was what we had to do at the time if we wanted something a little different.











Thanks for looking.

Stephen.

[Ryan]

That still looks like a new build, hard to believe its from the mid 70's.....

I'm near the same vintage and the model has held up better than I have!

Ryan

[RAGIII]

That is a real beauty, especially considering the age of the build and the quality of the original Camel kit you used for the conversion! I remember some of those old articles. Make an Albatros DII using the Revelle DIII kit and Roland CII wings, so forth and so on 
RAGIII

[lcarroll]

    It's quite remarkable that you still have it Stephen, and it's stood the test of the years very well. I recall those days fondly as well, we've come a long way from the limited selection and dubious quality of that era. I recall modifying a McDonnel Banshee to the -3 version the Royal Canadian Navy flew; it must have had a full pound of modelling putty when done. I succeeded in making it look not like the basic version it started as, problem was it really didn't fully resemble the version I attempted......
   In contrast your Hanriot turned out very nicely!
Cheers,
Lance

[jeroen_R90S]

Very nice! All of my old models are, unfortunately, gone, except for my very first one, a DAF 3600 truck in 1/24 scale, and one of the later ones, a 1/48 Hasegawa F-16D. Would make a nice thread for offtopic I guess; "my first model(s)".

Jeroen