Early Handley Page aircraft

[spaceshiprepairman]

Several months ago, when I had a few extra dollars burning a hole in my checking account, I went shopping on EvilBay, wondering if there would be something that could tickle my fancy. Sure enough, I found something that did, and ticklish my fancy really was, because this was a resin rendition of an engine I never heard of, and the price being right, I ordered it. It was a 1/32 Anzani 10 cylinder engine. While I don't claim to be a trained historian, I am a scale modeller, and do a lot of research, but this seemed to be obscure enough that a kit for an aircraft powered by this would not exist. And, after ordering it and doing some basic research, I did find a few types which were interesting enough to do further research, digging even deeper.

 

I have a number of the Putnam aircraft manufacturer books, one of which is Handley Page Aircraft since 1907. They designed and built an aircraft which carried this engine, the Handley Page G/100, and I knew immediately that that would be perfect. However, a couple items about this gave me a bit of pause. First off, the wheels were exposed(no canvas hub covers), and I couldn't find any manufacturer who would sell wheels that could be used(perhaps I didn't dig deeply enough). Second, as it was pre-WW2, and a biplane, it had one of my bugaboos, rigging. It's bad enough that I have a lot of difficulty rigging biplane wings, but this had rigging to spare, along with exposed control wires. Still, it had something which compensated for those, with plenty to spare. Wings with gracefully curved leading edges. To my eyes, this gossamer  little flyer was drop dead gorgeous. 

 

And so I've been slowly gathering what I could on it, information, that is, which was basically what is in the book itself, because after doing a very intense internet search, all the sites I found simply reiterated what I had in my hot little hands, which also supplied a nifty three-view. And so, after calculating what the wing span would be in 1/32, and then measuring the three-view, I headed off to the nearest copyshop to have the three-view blown up to scale. And, comparing the resin engine to the resulting blown up three-view, it fit. 

 

At this, I had reached the point where I decide whether or not to go ahead(as a mechanic, this is where I get out the go-no go guage to see if a fastener hole is within limits or not). For me, it's a go.

 

In all the time I've been a modeller(almost as long as I've been alive), I've never scratched such a beastie before. Not even a Jenny(yes, I've worked on a full size Jenny, even helped with the wing rigging, and yes, if any of you have ever heard of the story that when you toss a live chicken between the wings of a Jenny after rigging them, and the chicken can't escape, the wings are properly rigged, and I've even worked on a Tommy Morse, and helped overhaul the Le Rhone engine, but that's another tale for the future) model. And this looked worse than a Jenny. In fact, having seen a 1/48 scale model of a Fokker Spin many years ago, looking at that memory, I gained new appreciation of the patience and work that that model took to rig. And then there is the Silver Wings Taube(I have a copy of Col. John A de Vries "Taube, Dove of War", a tome I highly recommend if you don't know much about the Taube), which, besides the price, kind of scared me because of the rigging required. And now, I am about to live that phrase about fools rushing in. And yet, if I want to see that lovely 10 cylinder engine(as an A&P, I'd always thought that a radial engine is supposed to have an odd number of cylinders, 3, 5, 7, or 9, not 10 in one row, and after researching, found the Anzani 10 cylinder engine to be drop dead gorgeous) hanging out in the wind. Already I could see a G/100 clawing for altitude, being a homesick angel headed home. Yes, I suppose that I'm an unrepentant romantic.

 

So, and I realize that I may be setting myself up, I'll be asking you guys for pointers, starting with, what would be the best way to start this, because I'm feeling like I'll have to take myself back to when I was but a wee lad, in the halcyon days of callow youth, building stick and tissue flyers powered with a twisted rubber band, usually peanut scale, and taking them to the local school yard to give sacrifice to the Gods of the Air, hopefully they smile by allowing my little flyer return instead of being carried by errant breeze into the evil and hungry trees, which always hunger for the product of young modellers. 

 

[rossm]

I wouldn't presume to advise on technique but there are books by master modellers - I found one on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-Scratch-Builders-Techniques-Aircraft/dp/0764307959/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1515693349&sr=8-4&keywords=scratch+model+aircraft but I was really thinking of ones by the likes of Harry Woodman and Tony Woollett from days gone by. For example https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Model-Aircraft-Plastic-Card/dp/0852424353

 

Another reference source could be the Flight magazine online archive - https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/index.html