1/72 scratch built Hansa-Brandenburg flying boat, KuK Kriegsmarine, spring 1918

[pheonix]

Evening All,

 

This was built as part of the Flying Boats and Floatplanes GB. Construction was from plastic card, strip, rod and wood, and it was rigged with rolled 40SWG copper wire. The markings are from Arctic Decals and were commissioned by me - they are of excellent quality and highly recommended. The base is not finished: I am going to ask for help from members of my modelling club at the weekend to help me to get a better representation of the concrete platform which was at the base on the Adtraitic Sea from which some of these flying boats operated. This machine represents an aircraft in the spring of 1918.

 

 

 

The Hansa-Brandenburg was designed by Ernst Heinkel and his team for the German Navy but they showed no interest in it so it was offered instead to the Austro-Hungarian Navy KuK Kriegsmarine) who had issued a specification for a large general purpose flying boat powered by a 350 hp Austro-Daimler engine.

 

 

 

The navy ordered 60 machines in late 1916, the first of which was delivered in March 1917. Following the crash of the first example, delivery was delayed such that delivery of the the following 15 aircraft was not completed until March 1918. A shortage of engines meant that although most of the airframes were delivered in 1917-1918, many of the 134 manufactured were placed in storage and not used operationally.

 

 

 

The first W13 to see action was K366 in August 1917 and this machine was used on subsequent bombing operations until it was shot down in October 1917.

 

 

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Other machines were used in the bombing and reconnaissance over the Adriatic Sea. Durazzo (an Italian port) was bombed successfully in     June 1918, and later in the closing months of the war they were deployed against land targets in Bulgaria.

 

 

 

One machine (K405) was taken by the Americans as war reparation in 1919 and shipped to the USA where it was stripped down and rebuilt. It was thoroughly tested before being scrapped in 1922.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

P

[JOCKNEY]

Outstanding job

Looks amazing and completely justifies all your hard work. 

 Cheers Pat

[Courageous]

Brilliant work there Mr P. Really like the cart. Great stuff.

 

Stuart

[ArmouredSprue]

Amazing job mate. well done

[Vinnie]

What a cracking model. Looks like that involved a lot of time and patience, but you've certainly done it justice.

[Jackson Duvalier]

I admire your scratchbuilding talents, sir.  I don't have enough time to pursue modeling them but I love the look (and obscurity) of Great War floatplanes.

 

The turntable and rails are an appropriate touch for the display.

 

Have you checked for a satellite image of the Adriatic concrete platform?  There's a surprising amount of century-old concrete still visible from space, you might get lucky if you know precisely where to look.  I've used this trick to get appropriate details for display bases-- local soil and vegetation colours, approximate expansion gap spacing on concrete aprons, etc.  Even if a certain aerodrome is no longer extant you can get an idea of the right shade of dirt for undercarriage weathering, for example.

[Brandy]

Another stunner. Great job P!

 

Ian

[JohnHaa]

Very nice model !

 

Scratch and in 1/72, My compliments!

 

With regards,

JohnHaa

[Greg Law]

Brilliant job of this plane, particularly as it is scratch built. The paint scheme is very interesting and the base adds to the overall effect very nicely. 

[pheonix]

5 hours ago, Jackson Duvalier said:

I admire your scratchbuilding talents, sir.  I don't have enough time to pursue modeling them but I love the look (and obscurity) of Great War floatplanes.

 

The turntable and rails are an appropriate touch for the display.

 

Have you checked for a satellite image of the Adriatic concrete platform?  There's a surprising amount of century-old concrete still visible from space, you might get lucky if you know precisely where to look.  I've used this trick to get appropriate details for display bases-- local soil and vegetation colours, approximate expansion gap spacing on concrete aprons, etc.  Even if a certain aerodrome is no longer extant you can get an idea of the right shade of dirt for undercarriage weathering, for example.

Thanks for the tip Jackson: I had not thought of that. I do not know precisely which base this aircraft flew from, but many of them had concrete platforms and I think that they would all have looked much the same. I will certainly give your idea a try.

 

P

[Jackson Duvalier]

1 hour ago, pheonix said:

I do not know precisely which base this aircraft flew from, but many of them had concrete platforms and I think that they would all have looked much the same. I will certainly give your idea a try.

I certainly hope it helps, if not for this build maybe sometime in the future.  Again, that's a really lovely model, and scratchbuilt!  😎