1/72 Revell Albatros D.III

Gallery Article by Andrea Pomettini on July 31 2014

 

Hi ARC’s guys, here I am with a pleasant model, although it is very different from real airplane (pleasant too, indeed).

It may be due to the old mould; no matter the re-boxing, it comes straight from the past: Revel itself marked the year 1981 in inner nacelle and I guess a visit to scalemates.com would provide an even longer story for it. Results are: wings are too thick along with a the fuselage missing panellines and with a round section.

Nevertheless, I suggest it; if you give up the idea to make a perfect reproduction, you will enjoy a quick and simple build, allowing you to prove your painting skill in getting some wood taste for body and washing over linen wing coverage.

 

Click on images below to see larger images

This is exactly what I did, along with very few changes: seat belts cut from soft aluminum foil and a cloche got by warmed and stretched sprue. Finally, tail rudder cut and twiddled.

Insignias are amusing: so great compared to surfaces, and so many: balkenkreutz are both on tail and body sides ! Plus red hearts and leaves branche around a white cross. Indeed, white cross should likely be a white swastika, but once more, it was a funny exercise. 

By the way, it was one of the Albatross D.IIIs used by Leutnant Werner Voss; the one he was riding within Jasta 2 of the German Airforce, somewhere in France during the spring of 1917.

The more I go on with modeling, the more I think any bird deserves a location, maybe minimal, but it does. This time, a round paperboard, mostly covered with fake grass (glued by vinyl glue) to simulate WWI airfields. On a side, some styrofoam pieces slightly carved out and painted with different light grey shades, pretends to be a country stone wall defining airfield boundary, therefore, on the other side no more grass but rocks ground and a tree.

It will never be a prizewinner, but it was a so anti stress project; enjoy modeling.

Andrea Pomettini

      

Photos and text © by Andrea Pomettini