The Nieuport 17 was undoubtedly one of the major successes of 1916 and part of 1917, until the Albatros outclassed it. The Nieuport was almost copied by Siemens-Schuckert of Germany, and Britain bought several Nieuports to supplement its Sopwith Pups and the obsolete DH-2s. The Nieuport 17 was usually armed with a just one belt-fed machine gun, but some units added a Lewis gun on top of the wing for added firepower. The fact that the wing-mounted gun didn't need to be synchronized enabled it to utilize its maximum rate of fire as well, although the changing of ammunition drums in air-to-air combat proved difficult.
The model is the ESCI 1970s vintage model. The kit, originally designed to be made up as one of Charles Nungesser's mounts, came together very nicely, but the cockpit was so sparse and almost impossible to detail, so a (hopefully) victoriously waving aviator was added to the little fighter. The Lewis gun came from a Roden kit, and the mounting was scratch-built based on photos in various books. The paint scheme of dope and red is from Choroszy Modelbud, but the exact unit remains unidentified.
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