Glencoe 1:48 Albatross DIII. Werner Voss

[Russ72]

The Plane

The Albatross DIII has an evolution which began with a plywood-fuselaged racing biplane built before the Great War. Albatross designers Thelen, Gnaedig and Schubert combined this experience and the reliable, water-cooled, Mercedes engine to produce perhaps the best and most effective of all the Albatross scout fighters. The DIII served on all fronts and almost all of Germany's Aces cut their teeth on this aircraft. The Albatross claimed so many victories during April of 1917 that it became known as "Bloody April".


General characteristics
Crew: one
Length: 7.33 m (24 ft 0 in)
Wingspan: 9.00 m (29 ft 6 in)
Height: 2.90 m (9 ft 6 in)
Wing area: 23.6 m² (254 ft²)
Empty weight: 695 kg (1,532 lb)
Loaded weight: 886 kg (1,949 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 955 kg (2,105 lb)
Powerplant: 1 × Mercedes D.IIIa inline water cooled engine, 127 kW (170 hp)

Performance
Maximum speed: 175 km/h (94 kn, 109 mph) at sea level
Range: 480 km (261 nmi, 300 mi)
Service ceiling: 5,500 m (18,044 ft)
Rate of climb: 4.5 m/s (886ft/min)
Wing loading: 37.5 kg/m² (7.67 lb/ft²)
Power/mass: 0.13 kW/kg (0.081 hp/lb)

Armament

2 × 7.92 mm (.312 in) LMG 08/15 machine guns

The Pilot



Werner Voss, a dyer's son from Krefeld, was a patriotic young man even while still in school. He began his military career in November 1914 as a 17 year old Hussar. After turning to aviation, he proved to be a natural pilot. After flight school and six months in a bomber unit, he joined a newly formed fighter squadron, Jagdstaffel 2 on 21 November 1916. There he became friends with Manfred von Richthofen.

By 6 April 1917, Voss had scored 24 victories and awarded Germany's highest award, the Pour le Mérite. The medal's mandatory month's leave removed Voss from the battlefield during Bloody April; in his absence, Richthofen scored 13 victories. Nevertheless, Richthofen regarded Voss as his only possible rival as top scoring ace of the war.

Soon after Voss returned from leave, he was at odds with his squadron commander. He was detailed from his squadron to evaluate new fighter aircraft and was enthused by the Fokker Triplane. After transferring through three temporary squadron commands in two months, Voss was given command of Jagdstaffel 10 on 30 July 1917 at Richthofen's request. By now, his victory total was 34. His last stand came on 23 September 1917, just hours after his 48th victory. After he fell in solo opposition to eight British aces, he was described by his preeminent foe, James McCudden, as "the bravest German airman".

The Kit

















Initial impressions of the kit are that it lacks detail, parts require significant clean up, and a bit of scratch building/modification will be required.

Cheers.

[Scruffy]

Nice choice, the markings are awesome, but as you have already noticed, the molds for the kit are old and will require some work to bring into shape. It will be worth it in the end though.

[martin57]

looks like a nice kit hope it goes well

[Prop72]

This is going to be an interesting build and another with some great colour options. These WW1 birds were pretty snazzy for warbirds.

[UKguyInUSA]

Petty about the poor kit quality, but with some patience, clean-up and the choice of colorful paint options, she'll turn out a beaut!

[Russ72]

Hey there guys,

First up, cheers for the comments and support.

The Glencoe kit is a bit older (1989), not as old as me, and it lacks a bit of detail, and is going to need a bit of work. I bought the kit early in my return to the hobby, and at that time I viewed it as something I probably wouldn't attempt. But now, with a few kits under my belt, knowledge and wisdom gathered from threads on this here forum, and the, soon to be used very much Ultimate sanders I've recently acquired, I should make a complete hash of things. Seriously, aside from ultimately paying homage to those who participated in WW1, I'm aiming for fun with this build.

So, the kit is a blank canvas. Cockpit detail consists of, a seat................ . This is where the fun comes in. I've added some detail based on reference pictures. I'm looking more for illusion of detail rather than museum/competition quality of detail (because that's where my skills(?) are at). I find it easy to take an extremely detailed part in a kit, and finish it in a way that makes it look like an unrecognisable blob, so I thought I'd start with blobs and aim for basic.

Here's some pics of progress.

Rudimentary control yoke and seat cushion added. More to detailing to come.


Right fuselage.


Left fuselage.


Cheers, Russ

[Deacon]

Nice bit of detail there.

[UKguyInUSA]

Nice scratch-built additions mate

[Russ72]

Cheers for the comments Fellas.

I've painted the interior, which was made up from styrene sheet cut into thin strips and stretched sprue cut to desired lengths. The dials are also made from sprue, stretched, but not as thin as that used on the side walls, cut to depth and sanded. The pilot's seat got a length of stretched sprue wrapped around the top edge to represent, padding??? The remainder of the detail was done with the same materials already mentioned.

After undercoating the interior was painted with Tamiya XF 57 (Buff). When dry I used a stiff bristled brush and dragged it horizontally along the fuselage using Vallejo Game Colour Wash - Sepia Shade to create a wood grain effect. The brush wasn't loaded with wash, and I repeated the process until all wash was used, and beginning to dry. The frame work was painted with Vallejo - Leather Brown. When all was dry I went over the whole thing with Secret Weapon Acrylic - Flesh Wash.











The wood grain effect isn't completely convincing, but its the interior, I'm only going for illusion of detail. If I catch anyone looking into the cockpit with a jeweller's monocle and tutting, I shall poke them in their other eye.

Cheers for looking, Russ.

[Russ72]

The fuselage of the Albatross was made of wood panels. The fuselage halves in the kit were completely barren of any detail. I was thinking of representing the fuselage panels by painting in masked sections. I opted however to try the "Dymo" tape and panel line scriber technique. It didn't turn out too bad, a little rough, but i'll see how it looks when its undercoated.

So fuselage halves joined and pilot's seat installed. I folded up some foil, pressed in some lines and painted it to represent the fuel tank. Once the top front of the fuselage is added you can't see how far in it goes.





Russ

[martin57]

coming on great, scribed lines look good even through my jewelers glass .

[Russ72]

Time to play with the wings.

The wings are one piece (ie. Upper wing, 1 piece; Lower wing - port, 1 piece; and, Lower wing - starboard, 1 piece) with minimal detail(?) on the top side only. Whether it was right or not, I decided to thicken them up and give them some shape by adding some styrene sheet.





I applied thinner strips to the leading edge and outside edge, then covered that in styrene sheet.



Top wing was a little more involved as I had to add holes for struts etc.







When the glue was set I trimmed, sanded, filled and sanded until it all looked kind of like it was meant to be that way.

I then proceeded to not take photos. What an idiot.

I'll do another update in a couple of days to show how it all turned out.

Russ

[UKguyInUSA]

Great progress mate....she's looking great!

[Russ72]

Great progress mate....she's looking great!

Cheers Martin.

[Russ72]

Back again. So I jumped ahead a bit and I've started painting.

Everything was undercoated with Vallejo Primer (Grey), then the fuselage was sprayed with Tamiya Dark Yellow and highlighted with Tamiya Buff. The wood grain effect was created with Vallejo Sepia wash, lightly brushed on semi dry, with a broad brush. I might work this some more later on.





I think i'm going to brush paint the camo etc. to get some texture into the parts.



Cheers, Russ.

[Russ72]

Paint on the wings, tail still to be done. More to come this weekend.





Cheers.

[Russ72]

Final Update.

From the last update, the tail has been painted, the whole plane gloss coated with "Long Life" floor polish, decaled, and then another coat of gloss. The decals went down well with Micro Set/Sol, the crosses on the wings got a little help from Tamiya "Mark Fit".

The next step was to create a ribbed effect on the wings. For the top wing, starting from the radiator, for the bottom wings, starting from the fuselage, 6mm Tamiya tape was put down in strips with approximately 1.5mm gaps between (eyeball it). A thinned down mixture of Tamiya "Buff" was then lightly sprayed in the gaps, so that the base colour still came through.



The tape was then removed.



I then gave the wings a matt coat to seal the Buff and prepare the surface for the next step.

I applied crushed green and purple pastels to the wings over their respective camo colours. This began to tone down the Buff strips and blend them into the background. I then applied another Matt coat which removed a lot of that work, so I don't know if that was the right way to go, so I re-applied the pastels. I then mixed some white pastel in with each colour, and applied it with a smaller applicator, focusing mainly on the Buff strips. A buff pastel was applied in random areas when this was done, and blended in.





Top wing on to see how it looks.





Time to glue the top wing in place, do the rigging , and finalise some small parts.

Finished pictures will be in the reveal section.

Cheers, Russ.

[UKguyInUSA]

Wow, Russ, that is stunning mate, great detail work so far, I really love it. Its funny, because I only ever had an interest in WWII to Present day aircraft, but since I started my first WWI Bi-Plane and researching more of them, I've come to realize just what beautiful pieces of art they were, just as that which is reflected in your model mate

Cheers

Martin

[Russ72]

Wow, Russ, that is stunning mate, great detail work so far, I really love it. Its funny, because I only ever had an interest in WWII to Present day aircraft, but since I started my first WWI Bi-Plane and researching more of them, I've come to realize just what beautiful pieces of art they were, just as that which is reflected in your model mate

Cheers

Martin

Cheers Martin.

The whole "Knights of the Sky" thing comes out in the individual touches, heraldry if you will, that was put into some of these planes. They look good on the shelf next to all the WW2 stuff as well.

Well done btw on hanging in for so long on Chris and Alex's build this past weekend.

Russ.