1/32 Italian Nieuport 11

Gallery Article by Mike Muth on Nov 29 2017

 

      

Macchi Nieuport 11

The Nieuport was a French designed airplane that, in addition to being used by the French, was licensed and built in Italy by Macchi for the Italian Air Force in World War I. The first Nieuport designed to be fighter was the Nieuport 11, or the "Bebe." It is hard to accurately tell many of the early Nieuport designs from one another; they varied mostly in wing size and cowling shape. Anyway, the Nieuport designs up until the Nieuport 28 were primarily sesquiplanes; the lower wing being narrow and built around a single spar as opposed to the more traditional dual spar arrangement. The single spar allowed for a smaller lower wing resulting in improved visibility for the pilot. Unfortunately it carried with it less strength and many a pilot had the distressing experience of seeing his lower wing disappear during violent combat maneuvers. A-Model has a Nieuport Bebe in 1/32 scale and Academy has a Nieuport 17 in 1/32. I combined the 2 kits to make a representation of the Nieuport 11 flown by Alvaro Leonardi, an 8 victory ace who survived both World Wars. He was the only ace in the 80th Squadriglia, claiming 10 victories. A post-war Commission confirmed 8 for his final victory total. He was awarded Italy's Silver Medal for Valor twice. He decorated his Nieuport with the comic character of "Fortunello", the Happy Hooligan. It really stands out against the clear doped linen of his Bebe. However, I found that the A-Model kit was too fiddly for my skill set. Instead I used the fuselage, wings and other major parts from the Academy Nieuport 17. The only visible difference is that the turtle deck on the Bebe is flat while the 17's has a raised headrest. So, not 100% accurate but it turned out to be a fun build anyway.

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The cockpits of early World War 1 airplanes were pretty rudimentary. The Nieuport had its few instruments attached to any spare tubes or frames near the pilot. The cockpit is rather spacious so I stuck a few instruments from left over WNW kits inside the cockpit and decided it look right. Nieuports had seats that looked a lot like a peach basket. The A-Model kit tries to replicate this in photo-etch but I made a complete mess out of that. So I scavenged a seat from a WNW Albatros that I screwed up and broke down for the parts box.  (The box is getting more and more full, not a good sign!) The only other major fix was the cowling. Macchi- built Nieuport 11s had a horseshoe cowling that was painted in red, white and green to represent the Italian flag. A-Model provides the proper cowling but it is a little too small for the Academy fuselage. I cut the cowl in half and added a little more width adding sheet styrene to it so that it fit the Academy fuselage. I used the A-Model machine-gun and its mounting that was found on the top wing. No reliable machine-gun synchronization was yet in use by the Italians or French so the Nieuport's top wing mounted gun was kind of a stop gap measure.

I mostly wanted to do this build because of the Fortunello character that appears on both sides of the fuselage. The A-Model kit provided the decals for Fortunello and the serial number. No underwing roundels were to be found on Italian Nieuports. Instead the colors of red, and green separated by either white or CDL were applied to the underneath of both wings. I decided to keep the middle color CDL. Lots of choices out there for CDL ranging from numerous paint shades to some spectacular decals by Aviattic. I chose Humbrol "satin oak" for the nice yellowish tone I was looking for. The green that was applied to the cowling, wings and rudder was from Testors in the small bottle. The red was Tamiya X-7. The light brown outline that appears around the upper part of both wings, tailplane and fuselage was Model Masters dark tan. Colors on most World War 1 aircraft were glossy so I added a few coats of Pledge Future Floor Polish once all the painting was done. The rotary engine was painted with a base coat of Model Masters non-buffing aluminum and Tamiya semi-glass black. The details were highlighted with Model Masters brass. Tamiya flat black was applied to the cabanes and gloss black to the interplane struts and aileron rods. Rigging a Nieuport is pretty simple. I just used a pin vise to drill some holes part-way through the top wing and all the way through the bottom wing. Attach silver thread to the top wing with ca, wait a few minutes and then pull it through the lower wing, pull tight with a locking tweezer and attach ca where the thread meets the lower wing hole. At some point I am sure I will try to build the A-Model kit, but only after my skill set increases.

Mike Muth

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Photos and text © by Mike Muth