A trio of Nieuport 11s

I've just finished building 3 Nieuport 11s from SRAM, Skytrex and Reviresco, and it was interesting to do a comparison between the 3 kits as I went along. So here for your edification and enjoyment (and in good Kytey Styley) is how it went:

Tools and materials
Styrene strip and rod
Piano wire
Wire cutters
Mini-pliers (to bend piano wire for ‘V’ struts)
Zap-a-gap glue (really becoming a fan of this stuff)
Tweezers
Scalpel
Box of Band-Aids (obligatory when I am wielding a scalpel)
Files
Mini-drills various sizes
Medium and fine wet ‘n’ dry paper
Mr Kit and Vallejo paints
Decals from Dom’s decals, two from the SRAM kit and home-made serials

Sources
Osprey ’Nieuport Aces’ and ‘SPA124 Lafayette Escadrille’ books
‘Nieuports in RNAS, RFC and RAF service’ book from Cross and Cockade (if you like Nieuports, sell your Granny to get this book if you have to)

General
SRAM kit in resin, Skytrex & Reviresco in white metal
Lengthwise – SRAM & Skytrex roughly the same, Reviresco about 4 mm longer
Spanwise – Top wing – all within 1mm of each other. Bottom wing - Skytrex & Reviresco roughly the same, SRAM 2-3mm shorter

Initial thoughts
SRAM - Nice, delicate kit, good representation of original. Not going to last long on the wargame table.
Skytrex - Looks like a Nieuport but a chunkier model, hasn’t got the finesse of the SRAM kit. Fuselage slightly wider than other two kits. Not a good representation of the cowling, no detail for top half of engine cylinders which should be visible.

Reviresco - Doesn’t quite look ‘right’, but one of those kits that you can’t quite put your finger on why it doesn’t. Possibly due to its extra length?

Construction
SRAM - Because of the fragile nature of resin, replaced all struts with styrene and undercarriage with piano wire. I found a white metal prop for it, as the resin one was too fragile.
Fabricated two Lewis guns for top wing.

Skytrex - Gap between fuselage and top wing too big, replaced struts with styrene because the white metal struts were commendably thin but bendy. This aided reducing the fuselage/top wing gap. Also had to re-drill holes in top wing as Skytrex had their strut holes through the ailerons! The inverted ‘V’ strut in front of the cockpit supporting the top wing had to be fabricated from piano wire because Skytrex has modelled this as two vertical struts instead of the ‘V’. The prop blades were filed to a thinner profile and shortened, more in keeping with the Nieuport prop.

Reviresco - My one had miscast wings that needed parts of the leading edges filling with Milliput and sanding down. Reposition holes for rear undercart legs slightly inboard of the ones already there, so that the undercarriage is attached to the underside of the fuselage rather than the wings. Other wise straightforward construction. Only kit that I used the struts that came with the kit.

Painting and finishing
The Riveresco kit was painted as the Nieuport of Jean Navarre, the ‘Guardian of Verdun’. Overall clear dope finish, black rib tapes and large red/white/blue bands on the fuselage. Roundels from Doms Decals. This and the other models were finished off with satin varnish. Serials were home-made and run off on my inkjet.

The SRAM kit was painted as RS Dallas’ Nieuport. Again clear dope overall with light brown panels on the under-fuselage, dark grey rib tapes, blue interplane and undercart struts. Roundels from you-know-who. Yes, the plane did have French markings on the wings and tail, and RFC roundels on the fuselage. Again I made the serials myself.

The Skytrex Nieuport represents Raoul Lufbery’s machine, with brown/green upper surfaces and clear doped underside. Lufbery’s motif and the serials came off the SRAM kit, and I used the roundels that came with the kit as I wanted a darker blue centre. I was going to use the I-94 roundels, but they were very thin and disintegrated on contact with water. They must have been from a faulty batch as I used I-94 decals on my Fokker E.III without any problems whatsoever.

All the Nieuports were finished off with a coat of Citadel Spray varnish, which unfortunately left a cloudy sheen on them – the first time this has happened to me. However a final brush coat of Winsor and Newton’s Acrylic matt varnish did the trick and restored the colours.

Final thoughts
A few surprises and ‘lessons learned’ for me. The first was that once struts were replaced with styrene strip or piano wire, the SRAM resin model was far more robust than I expected it to be. So much so that I am tempted to dig out the SRAM Hannover and have a go at it. The two white metal kits looked pretty crude in the bare metal, but painted up well and I am very pleased with the result.

Question now is: how close was the performance of the Nieuport 11 in relation to the Nieuport 17. I’m trying to work out if I can use a 17 card, or whether I will have to tweak it.