Hawker Hurricane Mk I flown by Mirosław Ferić

 Mirosław Ferić

The Airfix Hurricane MkI is one of the few models available of the true champion of the Battle of Britain. It does feature raised panel lines and some minor fitting issues, especially when joining the aircraft body to the wings. But taping up the wings to eliminate the gaps and to achieve the correct dihedral solved that. I also added a floor to the cockpit, a gun sight, a late model radio mast, pitot tube, clear plastic position and navigation lights and the auxiliary gun sight as well as the rearview mirror. The decals came from Techmod, and this model represents a Hurricane flown by Miroslaw Feric, a Polish pilot (his father was Croatian, hence the name). He started out his career in a P.11c during the German invasion of Poland in 1939, and his diary formed the basis of the unit history of No. 303 (Polish) Squadron of the RAF. He flew with the Poles that opted to fly for the French before evacuating to England. He was to become the eleventh ranked Polish ace with eight and 2/3 kills and one probable before being killed when his Spitfire broke up above Northolt at an altitude of 3,000 feet in January 1942.

Airfix SPAD VII - a kit from 1959.

The Airfix model of the classic SPAD VII has been around for a good 53 years, although this boxing is from the 1980s or early 1990s. The "cheese grater" wings are, of course, a problem, but I tried to minimize contrast in the ribbing instead of filing down everything, including other detailing. I added rigging, and although I originally wanted to make a SPAD of the Franco-American "Escadrille Lafayette", the decals refused to cooperate, so it became a Black 8 from "Les Cicognes", including a pilot making a rude gesture to an an unseen colleague. It did not make sense to me to super-detail a cockpit in an aircraft that was lacking in detailing on many levels, so that is why the pilot was added. Nevertheless, this was a fun build. The base is an old room key from a hotel in Florida that was covered with static grass and paint.

Nieuport 17 in RFC markings

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.