It's one of several Morane Saulnier Type L projects I have in mind, one of two in 1:72. There are no new kits of this type available, and for such a superficially simple design, the kits I have display plenty of inaccuracies or modelmaking problems. This is an old resin offering from Omega Models of the Czech Republic. It happens to be the first resin kit I've built. I bought it because I simply couldn't find anything else. Later I found an injected moulded kit also in 1:72, but displaying an equal amount of problems. There's also an old offering in 1:48 from Eduard but that's hard to find now.
This situation in the modelling market is sad, because the Morane L 'Parasol' was certainly a historic aeroplane.
It was a pre-war design - and that's one of the problems with kit availability, because modellers tend to gravitate towards 1916-18 types. It didn't differ much from a line of shoulder wing types designed by Morane Saulnier, some of the most successful produced anywhere up to the First World War. The obvious visual difference, lifting the wing up and over the fuselage, was in aid of its intended role as an observation and reconnaissance machine; and naturally suggested its popular name of 'Parasol'. The design was licensed out, notably to Pfalz in Germany, as the Pfalz A I and A II, by Duks and Lebed in Russia in substantial numbers, and to Thulin in Sweden, as the Thulin D. In his book Sagittarius Rising, Cecil Lewis remarked of his Morane "the Morane really was a death trap" but did also say he came to "love the Morane as I loved no other aeroplane".
One historic Type L was 3253, the RNAS machine used by Flt Sub-Lt Warneford to bring down a Zeppelin for the first time, LZ37 in June 1915, for which he won the VC. A humbler example was the Thulin D presented to Finland in 1917 becoming the Finnish Air Force's first aircraft, put to use in the Civil War; a replica is on show in the Air Force Museum at Tikkakoski, posed in the act of dropping propaganda leaflets on the Red forces. Notice the skis fitted to the undercarriage.
However, the most significant individual aircraft was that used by famed aviator Roland Garros. Raymond Saulnier had been working on an interrupter gear to enable a machine gun to fire between the blades of a propeller, but by 1915 it still wasn't practical for operational use. To get some sort of a start they fitted deflector blades to a propeller so that Garros could take it up and get to work straight away, in March 1915. Garros soon had to come down with mechanical problems, and was captured, but not before quickly shooting down three German aircraft. The Germans' examination of the Parasol kickstarted the successful development of their own interrupter gear and hence the era of dogfighting.
I wanted to represent Garros's aircraft, and here was the first problem with the Omega kit. Despite both my 1:72 kits showing it as one of the options, it isn't possible to build it with either. You suspect I'm nitpicking about trivial inaccuracies? Unfortunately, the differences are very visible indeed. The biggest is the undercarriage: Garros's was an early production machine, which had the forward struts of the undercarriage reaching down and back from right behind the engine. Most, later, Type Ls had them reaching down and forward from the next rearward fuselage strut ie. immediately under the forward wing support, as on the Thulin D above. Sorry if that's long winded, but the end result gave the plane a very different look, as if it was crouching and ready to leap. So, I had to build a completely new undercarriage, using struts of cut metal rod. They would have been good enough for my purposes if only I had cut them the right length; they're a tad too long. Which wouldn't have mattered too much, but I realised too late that the wheels themselves are woefully undersized, in turn exaggerating the visual effect of the struts being too long.
A further perplexing inaccuracy is that although both this Omega kit and the AZ kit provide two different engines (7 and 9 cylinder each time), neither properly model the Le Rhône 9C 80hp rotary engine which actually powered the Parasol. You may say, well, only an expert would notice, what's one rotary engine compared with any other? Unfortunately, this engine did look different, having its induction pipes in front of the cylinders rather than behind as per usual. You can just see them on the Finnish example above, although in steely grey. They were normally a bright and colourful copper colour and so quite striking.
One other very visible departure from the real thing, from any version of the Parasol, is the lack of rigging on this model. This is by choice; this model will go into a cabinet of 1:72 models which I've kept 'abstract', with no decals or rigging, to maintain consistency. With the very earliest, some of which I made as a schoolboy! I'm explaining this because with all the early monoplanes the rigging was very visible. Since the wings weren't internally braced, so to speak, they had to be supported by elaborate rigging from above and below. You can see the distinct support pylons above the wing and below the fuselage. Although you certainly see the rigging on a biplane, most of it is between the wings; but with these monoplanes* it's all 'on the outside'. You're more aware with these out of all the early aeroplanes that they really were little more than powered man-carrying kites.
Among a host of other issues I had to deal with was the gun and deflector blades. Crude badly sized and ill fitting parts were provided for the armament, but I had to adapt or replace most of it. The real propeller was noticeably different from this, but at least it seems to be what it's supposed to be. My aim with this model was to place it with a small group of other early planes, all featuring different ways of firing straight ahead if you don't have interrupter gear. I'll do a post about that when I've finished all 4 or 5. I did another from this group at the end of last year, the SPAD SA2 (see my post, 'Corona Build 2'), which put a no doubt terrified gunner in a 'pulpit' in front of the propeller. A design which makes the Morane L with its gun firing straight at the propeller look a much more sensible solution!
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