Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'Eastern Express ex Toko'.
Found 4 results
-
Or in other words the two seat Sopwith 11/2 Strutter as it became generally known. Considering it was quite an important type with something like 1500 built in the UK and a further 4000 in France the Strutter has not been very well represented in kit form, A couple of vac forms, limited run kits by Merlin, Pegasus and one other company called Flashback, and what looks like quite a decent version by Czech Master Resin all seem to have been released in the 1980/90's so in order to represent this plane I resorted originally to following the conversion printed in the February 1981 Airfix Mag cross-kitting the RE8 and Avro 504K. They also did a Bristol Scout conversion of the 504. Showing its age now after 40 years of pipe smoke, but other than some rather wide and wonky interplane struts (ex RE8 I think) it seems pretty close in appearance to the EE 2 seater. And before anybody points it out I now realise I have used late war white outlined roundels which it probably did not carry! A few years later I picked up a batch of Merlin kits including their Strutter, and started building it as a Type 9700 single seater - incidentally the Admiralty Type numbers are the serials of the last plane in the first batch of each type. This is as far as I got and it is clear which parts have been exposed to the smoke! I Having finally completed the Rumpler C.III or was it the C.IV I bought as part of the batch of Merlin kits I may just have a crack at this one now as well, having the EE kit as a template for the struts. More later. Pete- 23 replies
-
- 6
-
-
- Eastern Express ex Toko
- Merlin
- (and 1 more)
-
When I first came across the Sopwith Snipe many years ago I assumed it was an improved Camel, and that in fact seems to be what Sopwith's had in mind when they started on the design in Summer 1917, but by the time it finally entered service in August/September 1918, it had undergone a rather lengthy development programme involving a fair few changes. When I saw that Eastern Express had released a kit about 20 years ago I picked one up and at some point made a start on it. In the foreground are the lower wing with the rudder bar, control column and seat previously painted and glued on. I have also painted the fuselage interior and glued it together adding the fairing at the front which partially covered the gun breeches, and the IP. Now seems a good time to re-start the build. The initial version looked very much like a Camel with single bay wings of slightly less span and a slab sided fuselage mounting a B.R.I rotary engine at the front and a Camel like tail at the rear - the only clear difference perhaps was that the "hump" which perhaps gave the Camel its name was missing as the twin Vickers were not faired in according to one source though others don't mention this.. Unfortunately, when it was test flown it proved rather disappointing being little faster than the Camel and handling badly, being tail heavy with pilots complaining of poor rudder response. It was sent back to Sopwith's with a request to fix the faults which they eventually did, but took a lot of time - perhaps in fairness they were fully tied up with the production of the Camel though they did manage to get the somewhat unorthodox Dolphin into service almost a year earlier, which was at least as fast as the Snipe though probably less manoeuvrable. I will outline the development story briefly during the build, but essentially the Snipe was faster but less manoeuvrable than the Camel and more manoeuvrable but slower than the SE5a as I understand it, but whereas the SE and Dolphin were withdrawn from service almost as soon as WWI ended, the Snipe continued in numbers as the front line RAF fighter until finally withdrawn in 1926 which is perhaps a little puzzling. Pete
-
Like the Pfalz D.XII, this is a Russian re-boxing of a Ukrainian Toko kit of a little known late WWI type. In addition to a considerable amount of flash there is a major problem with the propeller 2 blades of which suffered a short short it seems. Not only that but according to the Windsock book and other sources the blades should be longer/broader with a sort of "scimitar" profile and one of the reasons I never got round to finishing the build was trying to find a replacement. I have nothing suitable in my spares boxes, but recently I was able to pick up a dirt cheap bagged Pegasus kit of this plane, and although that prop is a mess with a lot of flash, I may be able to carve it to the correct shape. Time will tell! The kit offers two optional sets of wings, interplane struts, spinner and tail for either the D.III or D.IV version without really giving any clear instructions as to which to use, and the old Toko instructions are no better, but more on that when I make a start. Pete
-
I have always had an interest in kits of WWI planes and built all the Airfix and Revell offerings as soon as they were released but there were large gaps in the planes available. I know Airfix did produce a couple of German 2 seaters - a Roland and a Hannover, but there were a lot more than that and so nearly 40 years ago I bought a large batch of vac-form kits of things like the Albatros C.III. I never got round to building them as, although I had made a few vac-form models, the biplanes seemed rather too tricky and in the end they were donated to a number of other modellers. Back in around the early part of this century I noticed that both Roden and Eastern Express had started releasing some interesting WWI kits so I bought a batch. I have just about finished the 6 single seat Roden kits in the Ukraine GB, but still have 5 Eastern Express ones to build, although I did make a tentative start a few years ago. I have since discovered that they were originally released by the Ukrainian company Toko, and been informed that when taken over by the Russian Eastern Express many of the staff transferred to Roden, or maybe even set that company up from scratch. I suppose technically I could have included these kits in the Ukraine GB, but as they were in Russian boxes it seemed insensitive, so I will have a shot at finishing some of them here in the KUTA, starting with this. Overshadowed somewhat by the contemporary Fokker D.VII, this late war fighter is not that well known, but I have always fancied one. The moulding of the Mercedes engine looks very similar to those in my Roden Pfalz and Albatros kits. Being a 2 bay biplane with rigging it will not perhaps be the easiest of builds but it looks like Toko/EE provide more positive pins and holes for the struts than Roden do and with one piece wings the problems I had with the Roden kits in terms of strut alignment may be somewhat less, though by now I have devised a simple way of hopefully getting round that. Pete