1/72 Captured Luftwaffe Lioré et Olivier LéO 451T (Heller) - take two! +++ 15/3/21 - it's got me beat.

[TonyOD]

First bit of rattlecan on the landing gears. I must say @RidgeRunner they do look the business. On the point of those mudflaps I need to check but I’m not sure they belong in this variant of the landing gear, there isn’t actually anywhere they can be attached to.

 

Edited January 30, 2021 by TonyOD

[RidgeRunner]

18 minutes ago, TonyOD said:

First bit of rattlecan on this landing gears. I must say @RidgeRunner they do look the business. On the point of those mudflats I need to check but I’m not sure they belong in this variant of the landing gear, there isn’t actually anywhere they can be attached to.

Tony, from photos of the “long arch” they had an extension that extended back from the axle point. Yours may not had had them, of course :). If you do use them I reckon they need a fair bit of thinning, though. Good luck with all. The wheels that come with that set are good too. Again, I think the kit set is for the prototype. 
 

I think I will be getting the undercarriage trains painted today too

 

Martin

[TonyOD]

2 hours ago, RidgeRunner said:

Yours may not had had them, of course :).

Martin having spent probably more time than is healthy poring over pictures of (especially when SWMBO has presented me with a "to do" list) , I'm pretty sure that "my" LeO didn't have the mudflaps.

 

The horizontal component attached to the axle point only appears on the "short arch" version:

 

 

Whereas the "long arch" version doesn't have this, but has "V" shaped components either side of the back of the wheel. There are no obvious attachment points for mudflaps:

 

 

(Though the "long arch" versions have enough clearance of full-on mud- or debris-guards)

 

 

On the best picture of "my" LeO, blown up a bit, the "V" shaped bit is clearly visible, no mudguards:

 

 

I'd be willing to bet that the one type didn't succeed the other, but the two types were fitted in the factory simultaneously. My reasoning for this is:

 

- there are pictures of both types on Luftwaffe operated LeOs. When the Italians captured the SNCASE factory near Lyon on  21 May 1943 they found a batch of 39 LeO's, which the Germans swiftly relieved them of. I don't know if the factory continued to turn out LeOs after that and supplied them to the Luftwaffe - it's possible, I've read somewhere that the Luftwaffe had 50 of them - but it's certainly feasible that these LeOs with the different types of undercarriage all came from the batch taken by the Italians.

- both types of landing gear are seen in the newsreel film "Production of...", which is a reportedly a mash-up of two films released in January and March 1940. It's a fair assumption that the footage for these film was taken during if not one visit to the factory, certainly more than one visit over a short period of time. Again this points to both types being sourced and fitted concurrently at that time.

 

Isn't it involved? I wonder if there's anything about all this in your book? How did they decide which airframe got which type of undercarriage? It's all a bit of a mystery.

 

I agree that the resin wheels are a huge improvement on the kit wheels, it's a pity that they didn't capture that heavy tread on the tyres but as the second picture above shows they used smooth tyres too.

 

Right, better crack on, she's starting to look tetchy. Have a good one.

Edited January 30, 2021 by TonyOD

[RidgeRunner]

Tony @TonyOD, that’s a fair bit of research there! I’d love to find out more but my books are in French . I do know that there was a wide variety of configurations within the LeO 45 family, though. Apart from the undercarriage there was, at least, the windscreen, the upper Cannon aperture and it’s armament, the nose cone ,various engines, different fins, different tail

cones, cabin windows, aerials, and other differences. It is a fascinating type!

 

Martin

[TonyOD]

The more you look, @RidgeRunner, the more you find 😉

 

My French is pretty good btw, if there’s anything in your book I can help you with let me know.

[TonyOD]

Got the masks of the fuselage. Bit of a bleedfest on the white band that will need touching up, I’m surprised that yellow managed to sneak through all the tape.

 

Again there’s little tonal difference to be seen between Humbrol’s 241/RLM 70 and 242 /RLM 71. They’ve been a sod to paint with and there are so many coats on there that the panel lines have largely disappeared. On a plus side they do seem to come with a kind of “ready weathered” look that I find quite appealing.

 

Edited January 31, 2021 by TonyOD

[Heather Kay]

15 minutes ago, TonyOD said:

there’s little tonal difference to be seen between Humbrol’s 241/RLM 70 and 242 /RLM 71

I believe this (lack of) difference is accurate. I think, as modellers, we see colour profiles and paint guides that exaggerate the tonal difference so it can be seen in print and then we think that is the way it should be. I’ve got the RLM colours in Xtracrylix, Humbrol and ColourCoats, and they all agree the tonal difference is slight between RLM 70 and 71.

 

 

[2996 Victor]

Just caught up with this, Tony. It's a fascinating build of a type that has always intrigued me.

 

I had a few Heller kits as a youngster, and found them quite enjoyable, almost exotic, alongside my usual fare of Airfix Series 2 and Matchbox.

 

I quite fancy one of these in Vichy markings, but I don't think I'm up to rescribing a whole model just yet!

 

Looking forward to seeing your progress.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[TonyOD]

2 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

I believe this (lack of) difference is accurate. I think, as modellers, we see colour profiles and paint guides that exaggerate the tonal difference so it can be seen in print and then we think that is the way it should be.

 

I have no expertise in the matter Heather but I'm inclined to agree. from looking at lots of b/w pictures anyway where you can hardly see the splinter, just lots of "dark". That bit wasn't a criticism, more an observation. For all the effort that had to be put into it the overall effect is quite pleasing actually, like I said the paints offer up quite an "authentic" looking finish rather than just flat overall tone. The panel lines wouldn't be that obvious on a dark background anyway, I've just put a soft pencil line in the bits I can see and finished with a final thin coat. The other side of an oil wash and a matt finish I think it'll look decent. I reckon that this plane I think was a bit of a beater, the Luftwaffe got plenty miles out of it before the USAAF took it on and flew it in North Africa, certainly the one colour photo in existence (still with its German markings) doesn't suggest a plane that looked shiny and new!

 

2 hours ago, 2996 Victor said:

I quite fancy one of these in Vichy markings, but I don't think I'm up to rescribing a whole model just yet!

 

It's a lovely kit Mark, I took an absolute kicking off it first time round because I was doing lots of things wrong mainly. On the second attempt I'm drawing on wells of patience I never knew I had and thinking a lot more carefully about each step. Rescribing I'm getting better at, this was probably an ambitious one to do first time out with all those curves (rescribing my Amiot afterwards was a doddle - everything's flat!) I fancy one of those Vichy schemes too and I have a bunch of Heller Musée kits in the stash that offer this possibility, but those red/yellow stripes are terrifying!

Edited January 31, 2021 by TonyOD

[Black Knight]

The lack of contrast is so real that for many years Airfix advised painting their Ju-87 models in a single shade of dark green

[TonyOD]

In the middle of October I remember saying something like "great, week off work, time to make some progress on this LeO"... well that was incarnation one and here we are again. Hopefully it will have the shape of an aeroplane sometime in the next few days!

 

I've had a further rationalisation of my building method and am now down to strictly one build at a time, except for my long-term Dragon Rapide project, which hopefully should help me make betrter speed on a given build. I feel I'm massively overcommitetd on group builds though, and always seem to be playing catch up...

[TonyOD]

Got the wings on. Getting the flaps on the trailing edges was an absolute faff )little balls of Blu-Tac acting as spacers) and the fit along the middle sections isn't 100% but it'll have to do. There's work to do on the gaps in the wing roots (particularly on the underside) and then painting them to blend in with the wings and fuselage, and some touching up here and there but on the whole I'm pleased with how she's looking. I still have my misgivings about the (lack of) contrast between the two shades of green in the splinter camo, I've seen three photos of this plane, two b/w and one colour, and all suggest more contrast but stripping and repainting isn't on the menu!

 

Edited February 14, 2021 by TonyOD

[RidgeRunner]

16 hours ago, TonyOD said:

I've had a further rationalisation of my building method and am now down to strictly one build at a time,

That’s my intended method too, Tony ;). Sadly I don’t heed my own wise words. I get too excited!

[TonyOD]

The wing roots over and (particularly) under were a bit gappy, I've filled them and the next job will be to paint them to blend with the surrounding paintwork. More of the dreaded yellow...

 

 

I think I'm only a few days from slapping the decals on now.

 

 

According to Scalemates my decals date from 1975. I go them off a French eBay seller and they weren't exactly cheap! A couple of months taped to the inside of a window has deyellowed them nicely, but there are a few issues:

 

• One of the underwing codes is wrong, it should be OK+ZD, not ON+ZD. With a sharp knife and a steady hand I should be able to fashion a "K" from the "N" (or other bits of black decal in the spare box).
• The callouts state RLM light blue for the underside and white for the spinners, these are now known to have been yellow.
• The overwing roundels are too big. There is a profile out there that shows smaller roundels nearer the wingtips. This is borne out by a picture of one of the Luftwaffe LeO's at the SNCASE factory that clearly shows small Balkenkreuze near the wingtips. the Americans wouldn't have gone to the trouble of painting larger USAAF roundels elsewhere on the wings, then overpainting the Balkenkreuze in splinter camo (where would they have got RLM paint, for one things), they would have just overpainted the German markings in similar dimensions. I have a couple of roundels in the right size in the spares box, fortunately.
• The tricouleurs on the tail are a source of puzzlement. I used the word tricouleur with the assumption that they are French flags painted over the swastikas to reflect the plane's French origins. This assumption could, of course, be completely wrong. In most profiles, and both the photographs I've seen that show the tail, they're upside down, for a start, with the red stripe at the front, like RAF fin flashes (although the callouts for the decals show them as French flags with the blue stripe forward). Possibly whichever American serviceman painted them was sure what a French flag looked like and just did them wrong? Seems unlikely. Are the colours misrepresented in the photos by one of those old b/w camera films that darken and lighten certain colours? Also they're presented here with a gold border, which isn't always shown in profiles of the a/c. This isn't clear in any of the photos of the aircraft that I've seen. Answers on a postcard...

 

Of course, this may become completely academic if (being almost half a century old) the decals fragment at the first sniff of H₂O...

Edited February 16, 2021 by TonyOD

[Marklo]

Funny the fun flashes with the gold border look very like the Italian markings seen on me109s prints coincidence.

As you’ve said judging colour from black and photos is fraught as colours will vary according to the chemistry of the film. I’d trust your judgment rather than the photos shades.

 

On the oversized decals another useful fix would to photocopy them on to inkjet decal paper at a reduced size, a cheap all in one can usually be obtained in the likes of Tesco for under 50€  And the paper is usually under a tenner  for five sheets and a fiver for some spray varnish so all told thats break even  for buying five decal sheets. I tape pieces of decal sheet  to normal paper so I can usually get a large number of decals from each sheet and can print from my phone so it’s easy to edit files for printing.

 

I did the decals on the Seabee this way edited with word on my phone d as me wirelessly printed on inkjet decal film.

Edited February 16, 2021 by Marklo

[TonyOD]

9 hours ago, Marklo said:

Funny the fun flashes with the gold border look very like the Italian markings seen on me109s prints coincidence.

 

This is very interesting.

 

I was puzzling over why the Americans would take the trouble to paint a French tricouleur over the swastikas, maybe to reflect the plane's French background, but it seemed a bit left field. It did occur to me that there's an outside chance that it wasn't a French flag but an Italian one (it was captured in Sicily after all) - there's no colour photographic evidence to say otherwise. However: what if prior to it being captured by the Americans it had been transferred to the Italian Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana and had the swastika overpainted with the Italian flag, as was normally the case with the 109's, and the Americans just left it there when they captured the plane? This would make perfect sense! I can't find any reference to squadron code "OK" for any Luftwaffe unit, so this might back it up.

 

I like your decal technique!

[TonyOD]

In other news, it transpires that the prop spinners on this aircraft were probably red, not yellow, as was the norm for allied planes in the theatre at this time (usually single engined fighters - there weren't many twins with prop spinners). Note contrast with the underside, which I hadn't noticed before,

 

[AdrianMF]

It’s looking great!

 

Just doing a dry fit of that wing with the separate upper flaps gives me the willies!
 

On the flashes, the colours to me look a bit too contrasting to be bright green and red. Quite a few aircraft seem to have had RAF-style fin flashes with US markings. I guess they just painted them up the same way.

 

It’s going to be a unique and wonderful model whatever markings you choose - I’m looking forward to seeing it progress.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[TonyOD]

19 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

On the flashes, the colours to me look a bit too contrasting to be bright green and red. Quite a few aircraft seem to have had RAF-style fin flashes with US markings.

 

I've just been doing some further digging. the LeO was operated as a squadron hack by the USAAF 57th Fighter Group, which flew P-40s at that time... with RAF style fin flashes. 😁

 

It's coming along... sloooowly...

[Big Dave S]

Lego stands... now that's a splendid idea.

Interesting subject. Nice progress.

[TonyOD]

3 minutes ago, Big Dave S said:

Lego stands... now that's a splendid idea.

 

...which I nicked from somebody else. Very adjustable set-up.

 

 

[TonyOD]

Fin flash round-up:

 

I've been pondering the fin flashes painted over the swastikas. At first I thought they must be French tricouleurs painted upside down or perhaps poorly represented by the b/w film - maybe (I thought) they were added by the Americans as a tribute to the plane's French origins, but it did seem a bit far fetched.

 

The decal sheet for some reason gives them a gold border, similar to the Italian tricolori carried by German planes flown by the Italian Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana, so I thought they might actually be Italian flags and that the ANR had used the plane before it was captured (there isn't any colour photographic evidence either way.) But the time frame doesn't match up, so that was discounted.

 

The French Wings profile shows an RAF-style "red to the front" fin flash on the port side, and the same on the starboard but inexplicably reversed with blue to the front. I think this is an error. 

 

Further research revealed that 57th Fighter Group, who captured this plane in Sicily and used it as a squadron hack, flew P-40s at that time and had RAF-style fin flashes, with a narrow central white stripe:

 

 

It's hard to tell from the two b/w photos of the LeO, but going from the width of the blue stripe I think it also had narrow white stripe consistent with 57th FG's fighters:

 

 

I found an excellent website about 57th FG with hundreds of photos (none featuring my LeO, sadly) and detailed documentation on its operations in North Africa and Italy:

 

http://57thfightergroup.org/index.html

 

(Incidentally @Col. this website reveals that the 57th went to Sicily from North Africa, and then worked their way north through Italy... reports that the LeO was flown in North Africa, therefore, are most likely erroneous and this build wouldn't have been eligible for the Africa GB! 😁)

[Cometracer]

What an unusual subject, an American - French aircraft captured from the Germans.  Wonderful!   - And to find it had a dedicated decal sheet, even more wonderful.  Thanks for sharing!

[TonyOD]

4 hours ago, Cometracer said:

What an unusual subject, an American - French aircraft captured from the Germans.  Wonderful!   - And to find it had a dedicated decal sheet, even more wonderful.  Thanks for sharing!

 

It really is an interesting subject, and this is one of those where I'm enjoying finding out about the plane as much as I am building it. There isn't a lot to go on, but careful thought and a little bit of valid conjecture challenges some of what has previously been suggested about how this airframe looked while in USAAF service.

 

Dedicated the decal sheet may be, but it is wrong 😁. There is another, more recent sheet by Print Scale (https://www.scalemates.com/kits/print-scale-72-221-liore-et-olivier-leo-451--1005901) that is also wrong. Incorrect squadron codes on the fuselage, overwing roundels too big and the underwing codes are absent (I haven't actually seen a pic with US star on the plane where the underwing codes are clearly visible as on the two b/w photographs the underwings are in shadow, but it's one of those "fair assumption" situations. From reading about 57th FG's time in Sicily it seems they just found a bunch of German planes lying around. They didn't bother deleting the fuselage codes, so I doubt they would have bothered to overpaint the underwing codes that were clearly visible while the LeO was still being used by the Luftwaffe, I think they would have just overpainted the Balkenkreuze with USAAF roundels of equivalent size).

Edited February 18, 2021 by TonyOD

[TonyOD]

Well she's looking more like a LeO now with the tailfins and engine housings on. I had to enlarge the holes where the prop shafts go as the spinners weren't sitting anything like flush, the bit at the back of the propeller that the prop shaft is moulded onto now sits in this slightly larger hole.

 

 

There's still some touching up to do, mainly on the wing roots on the top, the underside wing roots are done and it's all very yellow!

 

Edited February 18, 2021 by TonyOD