Two of them. One's a Felixstowe F.2a, once of the Royal Air Force and donated to Chile in 1921; the other's a Curtiss H.16 in the same year; but essentially they're the same type. It was a rare example of joint development which produced an aircraft which was highly successful in WWI, and then one of the select few types which had a significant post-war career.
This project has dominated my modelling this year, involving not only the two Roden kits but a couple of vehicles of WWI vintage, various figures, a display base, and even a bespoke box to transport it all over the Atlantic. The original spark was the wedding of my cousin's son Chuck a while ago, and around the same time spotting that the F.2a kit could be finished in Chilean colours. Roden produced four different boxings in all: an early F.2a (this looked much like the American machine you see above, but with Rolls Royce engines and the unbalanced rudder of the other plane); a late F.2a, as built here in Chilean markings, and with the less common balanced ailerons; a Curtiss H.16, which was the same type but U.S.-built, fitted with Liberty engines when put into service in home waters; and finally, a kit of one of the Felixstowes fitted with a top wing gun mounting.
So, when US cousin Chuck got together with Felicia, born in Chile, the thought was there, of putting the Chilean boat in a scene with an H.16. That was my excuse for putting them in the same scene, which you could imagine was a base in Florida, even though they were never actually in the same place together. I wasn't able to attend the wedding, and anyway, the notion of carrying it over was clearly insane. But when the plan took shape, of travelling over to see all the family there this year, I revisited the scenario and went through the practicalities. It boiled down to this. It was the planes themselves which needed special care, and if they and any other smaller breakable bits could be carried in a container which measured up to the airline requirements for carry-on luggage, then the display base and its cover could happily go in the hold, and contain the clothes etc which would be the contents of the hold luggage anyway. See the previous post, now updated, for how that turned out!
They feel like the most difficult models I've ever built, and that's including any 1:32 kits, any scratch built nativity scenes or anything else. You can just about see where most of the difficulties lie; in the wing area, with all that rigging. Several challenges arrive together: the sheer number of struts, the overhanging top wings with extra rigging, the kingpost structures on top of each wing, and for me the toughest part of all, the engine mounts between the wings. I already knew they'd be tricky when the wings were put together, but in themselves they were astonishingly fiddly, with myriad tiny parts and sometimes only the vaguest guides to their location. They're a great feature once done, but they took a major proportion of my modelling time.
These boats offered an additional challenging area, the elaborate fantail of control wires leading from the upper fuselage to the tail plane and rudder. This took a lot of time and planning. You'll note that it's not just a question of there being a lot of wires, but that they split into two at various points. The only solution was to use my favourite Wonder Wire, rather than the monofilament fishing line used for most of the rigging. It isn't structural, in contrast to the fishing line, ie it doesn't much assist in holding the thing together, but it does stay straight along its length, and it looks perfect on these models. Better not dwell on how stressful it was, assembling those split lines!
Pity about the wingtip rigging on the F.2a, as you can see above. They shouldn't droop like that: it's the result of my being careless with the weights I used (paperclips) to pull the lines taut while the glue set. A small consolation is that visually it's not too bad because of their different shape from those of the H.16, so they don't invite comparison. I elected to leave out some of the rigging (btw not all the boats had exactly the same rigging set ups), as simply too awkward to fit, and fairly out of sight. Some under the tailplane, some around the engine mounts; and I didn't fit any of the double rigging employed with the flying wires (those are the ones which go from inboard to outboard, from lower wing to upper). I took the view that at this scale the difference would be scarcely noticeable, and trying to do it might even be obtrusive.
Do click on this pic (and any of the others of course) for a closer view, I love the detail of this little scene, with a naval officer expressing his opinions to a pilot and a rating from his position onboard the F.2a. I had some fun with the layout of the scene, although it had to be simplified as it became apparent that little could be fixed to the base board until after transport. I guess the main feature is that slipway, which somewhat resembles pics of the slipway at Felixstowe itself - the principal flying boat base of the Royal Naval Air Service in Britain, and where the development of these boats took place. It was going to be rather longer, and dip down into the 'sea', but this became complicated when the slope came into account, and the amount of available height it would take out from inside the display case. On their trolleys, and with those kingposts, those boats are quite high.
Elsewhere in the scene, I fancied placing a couple of support vehicles, and a fuel truck and a 4 wheel drive lorry both in US colours (true, Army rather than Navy) seemed suitable. There's a previous post about building those. Where I did come up short was with the figures. There are six or seven, ranging from the naval ones via two flying crew to a couple of army figures; oh and don't forget the dog at the end of the pier. I looked everywhere for the right figures, but I had to settle for very generic ones, the navy ones being essentially British and not even really WWI. I just had to hope that British influence affected the styling of contemporary Chilean navy uniforms. Certainly that rating there is wearing a very un-American style of headwear. The only authentic figure may be the driver of the 4WD vehicle.
Not even the dog is authentic! How on earth can that be, you ask? The thing is, my cousins have always kept Newfoundland dogs, great big loveable beasts. So I found a scale model 'large dog' and painted it black, with a bit of white on his front, just like Sammie. But I'd forgotten how big Newfoundlands are. Sammie is now 190 pounds and bigger than me. He's the most amiable dog you could hope to meet, but I'd have done better to look for a scale model bear to get a closer resemblance. It was the only part of the entire display which my cousins found fault with! :)
These boats offered an additional challenging area, the elaborate fantail of control wires leading from the upper fuselage to the tail plane and rudder. This took a lot of time and planning. You'll note that it's not just a question of there being a lot of wires, but that they split into two at various points. The only solution was to use my favourite Wonder Wire, rather than the monofilament fishing line used for most of the rigging. It isn't structural, in contrast to the fishing line, ie it doesn't much assist in holding the thing together, but it does stay straight along its length, and it looks perfect on these models. Better not dwell on how stressful it was, assembling those split lines!
Elsewhere in the scene, I fancied placing a couple of support vehicles, and a fuel truck and a 4 wheel drive lorry both in US colours (true, Army rather than Navy) seemed suitable. There's a previous post about building those. Where I did come up short was with the figures. There are six or seven, ranging from the naval ones via two flying crew to a couple of army figures; oh and don't forget the dog at the end of the pier. I looked everywhere for the right figures, but I had to settle for very generic ones, the navy ones being essentially British and not even really WWI. I just had to hope that British influence affected the styling of contemporary Chilean navy uniforms. Certainly that rating there is wearing a very un-American style of headwear. The only authentic figure may be the driver of the 4WD vehicle.
Not even the dog is authentic! How on earth can that be, you ask? The thing is, my cousins have always kept Newfoundland dogs, great big loveable beasts. So I found a scale model 'large dog' and painted it black, with a bit of white on his front, just like Sammie. But I'd forgotten how big Newfoundlands are. Sammie is now 190 pounds and bigger than me. He's the most amiable dog you could hope to meet, but I'd have done better to look for a scale model bear to get a closer resemblance. It was the only part of the entire display which my cousins found fault with! :)
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