Pegasus 1/72 Etrich Taube

[pheonix]

Evening All,

 

Here is another of my models of pioneer aircraft, in this case it is a kit. It is a short run Pegasus offering - I did have a vacuform of the Taube, (forgotten now who the manufacturer was because I sold it a couple of years ago), which I bought in the mid/late 1970's. Frankly vacuforms scare the life out of me and I would not wish to tackle one - scratch building is so much easier! Because it is a limited run kit it has limitations, some of which I could have better improved if I had had a bit more experience at the time. I tackled this after completing a number of conversions and wanted to make something from the pioneer years. This was before I started scratch building - now I would not bother with a kit but simply scratch build a model because some of this almost had to be scratch-built, but that was something I still had to learn at the time. There are things wrong with this which I am fully aware of, but it does represent a pre-war/early war type which offered valiant service at a time when flying machines were rather rare. The markings were hand painted. It is rigged with rolled copper wire.

 

Taube means pigeon or dove in German and the name is derived from the shape of the wings, although the original inspiration for this planform came from the leaf of the Zanonia palm. Igo Etrich was an Austrian who through a series of designs in the first decade of the 20th century eventually built an aeroplane that became the forerunner of the later Taube models. Although Etrich produced a number of prototypes, it was the two seat design which was produced in significant numbers, although every machine was different as each one was hand-built, and each was an attempt to improve on its predecessor. Later other companies in Germany produced similar aircraft, also called Tauben, but many of these were of simpler construction and had the underwing spar and spar extensions deleted and a markedly reduced amount of rigging, all of which reduced drag and increased speed.

   The two seat version of Etrich origin was adopted by the military in 1913 and was used for reconnaissance work. Control was by rudders attached to fins above and below the horizontal tail surface, and warping of the wing tips and horizontal tail surface. It was for this reason that the trailing edges of these machines were very thin: only the forward three-quarters of the wing had a double thickness of fabric covering while the the trailing section was a single surface. The undercarriage was in the form of a twin-forked structure similar to the contemporary designs of L. Bleriot. The engines varied from 70 to 120 hp, the most numerous being built by Mercedes or Argus. Radiators were mounted on the front sides of the fuselage and machines were unarmed. Taube types were used in the early months of the Great War but were withdrawn in early 1915. Those that were used operationally had for the most part the simplified structure of the later designs with the underwing spar removed and a simpler V undercarriage. Lt. von Hiddesen dropped some very small bombs on Paris in September 1914 from a Taube, and it was a Taube machine that brought news of the Russian armies movements in East Prussia that led to the Battle of Tannenburg in 1914. A Taube also carried out reconnaissance sorties for the German garrison at the siege of Tsingtao in Eastern China in 1914. Tauben also served in the air units of the Austro-Hungarian armies, although like their German counterparts they were withdrawn from front line service in the spring of 1915 but continued to be used for training for about a year afterwards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking

 

P

 

 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

WoW!!!!

[Yorkshire man]

'Is it a bird, is it a plane'..........well yes sort of !

 

[Horatio Gruntfuttock]

Another wonderful model mr Phoenix - I had one of these and sold it years ago, along with the Airmodel vacform to which your refer - scared the billygoats out of me!

May I enquire as to your rigging material? it looks like wire rolled under  steel rule but seems the wrong colour - just brilliant anyhow.

[Brandy]

See? You CAN build kits! 😁

Nice job. I have one of these and a Choroszy Rumpler (I think, don't have my list handy) Taube. I'm looking forward to getting some more early birds done soon.

 

Ian

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

WoW!!!!

[pheonix]

9 hours ago, Horatio Gruntfuttock said:

 

May I enquire as to your rigging material? it looks like wire rolled under  steel rule but seems the wrong colour - just brilliant anyhow.

It is rolled copper wire: I roll it under a brass strip on a piece of flat wood and hold it in place with superglue.

 

2 hours ago, limeypilot said:

See? You CAN build kits! 😁

 

 

Ian

Yes Ian I can, but I find that I do not get much of a challenge from them anymore, which is why I sold my stash off a couple of years ago. I just find scratch building more satisfying. Each to their own....

 

P

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Caveat temptor!

[JWM]

That is excellent!

Cheers

J-W

 

Edited September 11, 2018 by JWM

[Learstang]

Brilliant build of one of the very few aeroplanes based upon a winged plant seed!

 

Regards,

 

Jason

[Les Moore]

Having built many WW1 models and a lot of them Pegasus kits...I must say you did an outstanding job on a less than stellar kit.  Well done.  Kudos sir.

 

[SUB-SAM]

Wonderful Taube and good work on bringing that kit up to higher standards.

I was surprised when I looked around a few months ago at the lack of kits available, it always seemed a well known aircraft to me. I guess the high rigging requirements make for a poor 'kit'

 

I agree that full scratching Is probably the best option.

 

I recently printed out 1/144 drawings for my own scratch build.

A lot of people don't realise how big these 'birds' were, with a 14.3m wingspan so it's not tiny even in 1/144.

[kapam]

My goodness!

You must have tweezers instead of hands!

Simply extraordinary work - and "kit" seems a rather exaggerated term in this particular instance.

Awesome!