I am looking for the following detail items for a 1/6 scale nieuport 17 (may yet be a 12 or 23). I haven't decided on the precise example I will model on. I would be very grateful for any information/pictures and recommendations and internet addresses for vendors:

Scale 1/6 french or english pilot. Also, Info on (especially french) pilots garb. I used to scale model soldiers and tanks: I cannot bear to bodge a pilot up for a scale plane.

Scale 1/6 vickers and lewis machine guns and mountings.

Suitable wheels (this should not be too difficult, but if anybody has a particular recommendation...)

Scale 110 Le Rhone engine, or 110 Le Clerget.

A clear decription or photo of the rocket mounting rails on the V struts on the wings. Has anybody actually built on the rockets either scale or...just imagine... firing? That WOULD be something!

Look at Williams Brothers line of accessories for 1/6 Le Rhone rotary and 1/6 Vickers machine guns. www.williamsbrosinc.com .
Tower Hobbies carries the Williams Brothers line of accessories.
2 Piece

Dear Jon Farmer:

The PIPE here yet AGAIN...and since it's a Nieuport you're interested in, one place to start for DETAILS might be at...

http://mars.ark.com/~mdf/nieuport.html

...as THAT's the site known as "The Nieuport Page!"

There's ALL sorts of GOOD stuff there for documenting your project...if you're going to do a real Dix-Sept (the Nieuport 17) version, there are for-real ROZENDAAL done "museum quality" drawings there for THAT version, at http://mars.ark.com/~mdf/N_17d.html , that will have you going NUTZ with happiness-just about EVERY detail is there!

"2 Piece" WAS right about the scale dummy machine guns from Williams Brothers...THEIR website is at http://www.williamsbrosinc.com/ ...and if it's a 17 cm scale (1/6th size) Nieuport you're doing, their 4-3/8ths inch (11.1 cm) diameter "Vintage Style" RC plane wheels, their part number 13200, are also available!

For a PILOT figure, though, you can do MUCH better than Williams Brothers! Just check out DGA Designs, at http://www.dgadesigns.com/pages/779902/index.htm ...and check out their pilot "busts" and even FULL BODY pilot figure kits, at that site...and even a full body pilot kit in 17 cm scale would weigh just under 60 grams all assembled!

For the Le Prieur rockets, I found two notable links at http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/leprieur.htm , and at http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/le_prieur.html (THIS one has photos of a whole BUNCH of different Allied aircraft with them mounted on there)! Be advised that it was the Nieuport ONZE (the Type 11, also called the Bébé) that USUALLY used thesr rockets!

And I'd be "remiss" in NOT mentioning ALL the Nieuport documentation available from LEO OPDYCKE at WW I AERO...here goes...

"Nieuport-Macchi Tipo 11000 (Italian-built N.11)
*ISTRUZIONE E NORME (maintenance and rigging manual). 35pp text and dwgs, $5 fr WW1 AERO.
*NIEUPORT-MACCHI 11 & 17. Book by Longoni, 1976, 50pp. $8.50 fr WW1 AERO.
*23 11 x 17" sheets fr Aermacchi factory originals, showing main and some smaller components w/structurat detail. $25 fr WW1 AERO.

Nieuport-Macchi Tipo 17000 (Italian-built N. 17)
* 19 sheets as above (some identical to some of the N. 11). $25 fr WW1 AERO.

Nieuport-Macchi Tipo 10000 (Italian-built N. 10/12)
*25 sheets as above (some overlap, as noted above) $25 fr WW1 AERO

Nieuport I I Bebe, 1915
* 1plate 18x24"; 1/20 scale. Kelley dw, $ 10 fr WW1 AERO.
*NOTICE DE REGLAGE (rigging manual). 12pp, $5 fr WW1 AERO.

Nieuport 11,15
*2 big sheets (xeroxed in sections); dimensioned dwgs in German. $15 fr WW1 AERO.

Nieuports 11/17/27
* from WW1 AERO #93: comparative study of fuselages. $12 fr WW1 AERO.

Nieuport II
*TARIF DES PIECES DETACHEES (parts list, photos, dwgs, prices of spare parts). 16 pp, $7.50 fr WW1 AERO.

Nieuport 15
*1 plate 18 x 24", 1/20 scale. Kelley dwg, $10 ft WW1 AERO.

Nieuport 17
*for Wait Redfem's Warner-powered repro: full set of dwgs $100. Velda Redfem.
*The only 3 Rozendaal dwgs (build from them). Small $7; large (23x30"), $15 fr WW1 AERO. This set is the one that's also downloadable from "The Nieuport Page" link that I've previously mentioned in this thread!!!

MORE Nieuport 17...
*30-page translation of Rozendaal description of captured a/c. $10 fr WW1 AERO.
*4 sheets 29x40" fr Bergen Hardesty originals, $20 WW1 AERO.
*TARIF DE PIECES DETACHEES (parts list with detailed photos), 19pp.. $7.50 fr WW1 AERO.

Nieuport 23, 24, 24bis, 27
*NOTICE DE REGLAGE (rigging manual). 12pp, $5 WW1 AERO.

Nieuport 24
*Parts manual, including sketches of fittings, with cowl and wing m/g mounting. 12pp, $7 fr WW1 AERO.

Nieuport 24, 24bis
*Dwgs for Warner-powered repro; sarne as for N. 1 7 above. From Mrs W Redfern.

Nieuport 24,27
*4 sheets 29x48" fr Bergen Hardesty originals. $20 WW1 AERO.

Nieuport 27
*Complete set (about 300 dwgs on 8.5 x 11" sheets) fr French-copied originals, $100 + postage (+ Rozendaal N. 17 article, free if requested at the same time)- fr WW1 AERO.
*25 sheets- $37.50 fr Gordon Codding.
*6 big sheets, $55 + $4 pp USA, $13 pp overseas, fr Jim Kiger.

WHEW...now you'd HAVE to agree all this is a LOT of info for you to digest...and to contact Leo YOURSELF, just head for http://www.ww1aeroplanesinc.org/ ...his "regular" mailing address and TELEPHONE NUMBER are at the top of that very page!

Hope these links are helpful to you!

Yours Sincerely,

The PIPE!

Thanks very much guys. This is a really helpful start. The Nieuport page is generally excellent, as I am sure you will agree. I have the Albatros Nieuport fighters vol 1 book on order.

I have found good stuff at the university of canada
http://www.aviation.technomuses.ca/E...ion/sd085e.htm

The Williams engine, guns and wheels all look good. The pilot question is still open. I checked out your recommendation, but the website info is a bit sparse, I have contected them for more info and prices.

Now, I have a further puzzle which I will try to research but any help will be very much appreciated. Did every damn Nieuport of whatever nationality have the metal clips for the Le Prieur rockets on the struts? You would think so from the Nieuport pages and wingstrut (see below), I shall see whether photos confirm this. Actually, I would like to put them on the final plane as I think they add something. I am also thinking about a full set of static display rockets.

I hope to build a British Nieuport, I like the idea of the off-center Vickers. Also, I'm british dammit and I would like to be the second Nieuport flying over Berlin (the first did a long- range leaflet drop).
However, the only colour profiles I have yet found are at
http://wingstrut.com/nieuport_17br.htm
Anybody know any others? I am looking for a little more colour, although the red fuselage band on A6684 (see wingstrut) is rather handsome. Alternatively a combination of some form of camo with the aluminium cowl? I want to do a real aircraft though, so I shall have to live with what I can find.


Cheers

Jon, for pilots check with "Pete's Pilots". He has a really good handle on making pilots with the correct garb fot the exact time period your doing. Ask to see his photos of WW1 store front displays of aviation clothing & goggles. He will send you email pictures of all the available faces & bodies.

peter RICHARDSON [[email protected]]

Reg Hinnant

You did not mention if you would be building from a kit or from scratch.

I currently am flying an old Nieuport that is still offered by Proctor Enterprises here in the United States. It is 1/6 scale and is the -17 model although I have also aquired a set of drawings to convert the kit to a -24 or -27 version. The kit new sells her for 209.00 U.S. plus shipping Proctor also has all the Williams parts plus any WW I rigging and detail items that you could need. They have a Web site at

http://www.proctor-enterprises.com/main/

They also offer a 1/4 scale Nieuport 11 kit that is museum quality.

I am building a Flair 1/6 Nieuport 17. It cost me €90, approx $90 including tank, 'bits' and a nice but too shiny aluminium cowl. Its not fully scale, but it will do me for my first scale job. Work is currently on hold due to an emergency repair job...you know how it is.

Anyway, I got my copy of Albatros Productions Nieuport Fighters Vol 1. Good stuff, highly recommeded. here are a few nice colour profiles but I will probably extrapolate from the photo of 'C' flight, 29 squadron RFC at the top of page 29 (photo 58). This appears to show a flight of silver nieuport 17s with the upper surfaces camoflaged over (see the lower wing of 5C). I'm guessing the fuse stripe and the ID number are red. It will be aircraft 5C cos I love that font. The only bummer is that it is Lewis gun armed. I'm a bit worried about flipping it over on landing and breaking the gun.

With regards to the Le Prieur rocket mountings, it is now clear that the interplane struts were bound with cloth bands on all Neiuports and that the rocket mountings were smaller metal fittings, the precise shape of which I am still researching.

I got out to fly my Nieuport 17 this week end again and must admit I did flip it on its back on the 3rd landing of the day. It would have smashed a lewis mounted on the upper wing. If you post a e mail address I will send you the photos I have managed to acquire as they are too large put here.


Charles Pipes
[email protected]

This thread may be dead as I have not heard from it for a while but I will throw this out for general input.

I have been having problems getting consistant landings on a VK Nieuport 17 that is a 56 inch wingspan (1/6th scale) Saito .56 for power swinging a 13x5 wooden prop.

Speaking to the people at DJ Aerotech who sell a Fokker triplane and Sopwith Camel kit (Electric) I got the advise to bring the model in under about 50% throttle doing a rolling landing and keep the tail up as log as possible by reducing power to around 1/4 after the tail falls

Their logic was that he wing and large prop blanket the tail once you go to idle and let the tail down.

I tried it this last weekend and had great results. I will try again next weekend to see if it was just a fluke

I have flown the VK triplane and a Pilot Tiger Moth (and other tail draggers) and both are tippy on landing, but, if you come in under power and not full idle, it makes a big difference. The big prop out front can act like an umbrella and stall you faster sometimes too- I like a 14-6 on the VK kits. I generally come in with a touch of throttle, not enough to stay airborn, but enough to keep the tail under control. I find if you practice at altitude and find the sweet spot, you'll see the plane suddenly take up a nice flaired, decending flight path, and it lands real nice. I usually blip the throttle about the time the tail is going down too- it helps, plus sounds realistic. Like the real thing- learn to wag the rudder.
I used to have an old Robinhood 25 with an FS20 four stroke- nice and underpowered- that I set up with the gear a little too far back, to simulate the issue, and practiced the heck out of it until I could land straight and not nose over. I couldn't even take it off hardly the first several times it ground looped so much- it became a great rudder trainer. But, amazingly, it became very natural to my feel, and I could take off straight and land straight 98% or better. It helped a lot to have the 'don't care' trainer to get trained up on. My Tiger Moth is full-filling that function these days as I prepare to get back into VK- see my photo gallery

vH

oh, and about the Lewis gun, I figured that when I ever did a top wing Lewis, I would make the nice Wm Bro model for the static display, and use a dummy in it's place for flying- either a home made vacuum formed, or rough casted rubber one- using the main parts from the Wm Bro kit as the molds. Switch them out at flying time, then when you flip on the back, you don't feel the pain
That's how I'm doing my rotary engine on my Dr1.

vH