Macsporran

I was about to suggest Winged Victory and Sagittarius Rising, but I see they've already been recommended. Good choices. However many of the autobiographies will give you a real pilot's seat feel for the kit, tactics, strategy and thinking. Try those by McCudden, Collishaw, Willie Fry, MvR, Buckler, etc. Also a great little anthology of personal memories called 'Tumult in the Clouds'. All these are eminently readable, gripping even - and will put you in the middle of things much more than all the technical photo/plan books. Sandy

Hey Allan, most of these are old Aurora or Merit repops (plus the excellent Lindberg Jenny and poor 1/43 Heller SPAD) and will fall together easily, if not terribly accurately, but... The Glencoe Albatri are the company's own efforts and are undoubtedly the worst 1/48 WWI kits ever made. Nothing fits- the nose is a joke and the wings are just flat panels underneath. When originally announced they were reviewed in Windsock and Ray thought augurs were good. But when the pressings arrived they were terrible. Such a let-down. The decal sheets are however superb. Just bin the kits and use the decals on an Eduard or Roden kit. Trust me, I tried to build one - wish I'd thrown it in the bin earlier. S

There is a sense of no-going-back when you start a WNW kit. I bought every release as it came out and built quite a few, but when the company imploded I must admit I stopped building them fearing I could never replace. Then the prices on ebay went silly and I had a good think: I'd bought the big Felixstowe, Gotha and AEG kits to fondle, muttering "precious" as I did so, but realised they were far too big to actually complete and display so - off they went to evilbay at silly prices! (I'd bought the Gotha G.IV at £92, post free, and sold it for just short of £600!!!) For a couple of years now I've been building 1/32 CSMs, Meng and Rodens but my NY Resolution was to admit I probably wouldn't live long enough to build the 40+ WNWs I still have, so there's a Fokker D.VII on the bench as I write. It is so good to get back to those incredible fit tolerances and crisp details. There I've said it - 46WNWs (including 2x Albatros Jasta 5 trilogies!) Confession is good for the soul! Probably need to add more security cameras now though.. S

Yes I built it a year or so back. Lovely kit with lots of internal detail. I couldn't bear hiding away all that good stuff so left off a forward side panel to show cartridge drum, cable etc. This also helps solve the issue of panel fit: with so many separate panels and covers attaching to the framework you do need to be super careful and continually test-fit everything. (similar to, say, a WNW Fokker D.VII's engine panels - the tolerances are much the same.) I don't have hosting software but if you are interested the build log is over on the ww1aircraft site https://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=12570.0 Cheers

Howd'ya block this crap?

Au contraire, Roden did fairly thorough research on what the market wanted. They invited all the members of the specialist ww1aircraftmodels.com site (with 3000 dedicated WWI modellers) to compile a list of wanted 1/32 kits, then vote on their favourites. Obviously subjects already kitted by Wingnuts were excluded as no sane manufacturer would invest heavily when there might even be the remotest chance of the WNW moulds re=-appearing. The SPAD XIII, Sopwith Strutter and Avro 504K came out top of our poll. Roden committed to look at these subjects in depth and unsurprisingly chose to do the SPAD first as they already had some common bits tooled with their S.VII kits. Most of us asked for USAS SPADs, so better sales are likely with this release, although I certainly have bought one of the initial release. We understand the Avro 504K is now well into development and hopefully for release next year. Roden asked the target market what was wanted, then produced it. What more would you want them to learn?

I suppose all this elevator background musak is okay if your hobby is knitting but I go for the hard stuff when I've got a warplane on the bench! Last night it was Act III of Die Walkure, which opens with one of the most famous pieces ever - I love the smell of victory!

November already!

Just seen the instruction booklet. Jeezo! it IS a Wingnuts re-incarnation isn't it? Same layout, same paint guide, same team, same pics, same biogs! Wonder if this means that after an initial popular choice (Spitfire/SE5a) we can anticipate some oddball releases, like say a 1/32 Martin-Baker MB5, a 1/32 Blackburn Skua, culminating in a 1/32 Me321 Gigant glider with a boxing for the Me323 transport - which will sink the company and leave Hannants shelves groanng with unsold stock, alongside the WNW Gotha UWD white elephant? Maybe Border would pick up moulds for an unreleased 1/32 B-29 (or a V bomber!) and make another fortune from somebody else's work!

What's an STGB? Is it some variation of LGBT?

Beware the door-knockers - it is not only The Word they spread!

Enjoying your progress Cliff, but I'm waiting to see how you get on with the acetate windsceen. Way back in the 60s I remember building these sports models and the Cadet series saloons - the Rover 3.5 and Jaguar 2.4 etc - which all had the useless acetate sheet for the windows. I could never get it to form a curved shape or adhere to the frame. Of course the adhesives back then were pretty useless for the job, apart from Araldite but that always ended up a sticky mess. I'm hoping you'll solve a sixty-year-old problem and my best wishes for your success!

Just seen the final result, Mark - Excellent. Lovely model. Sandy

Many thanks for reply re cutter - and I see how quick and useful it is for replacing crappie decals or creating new ones. It's on the to-do list. Congratulations on adding the wraparound: (sorry for causing the associated repairs though.) Looks great - every bit an SE. Cheers Sandy

Nice progress, Dave, on a fine looking Schweinhund. Do you mind me asking what make and model of mask cutter you use, as I'm thinking of investing in one and need a bit of user feedback. Many thanks. Sandy PS if you haven't attached the top wing as yet, you might wish to add the distinctive 'wraparound' to the PC10 that was characteristic of SE's. Just an inch or two along LE and TE and tips of both wings and tailplane undersurfaces. Not a biggy but something we WWI types get wrapped up in our anoraks about! PPS I think the Roden box art is rather misleading as C1149 acquired its full red fuselage after the armistice when restrictions were relaxed and many squadrons hanging about in France or Italy waiting to be repatriated were allowed to keep busy painting all sorts of wild colours - like the fabulous chequered Camel D8239!