For The Year's End, My Friends: Aeroplane In A Bottle....
This is my favorite of the models I have done over the past year. It is a Caudron G.VI, scratch-built in 1/72 scale (six feet to the inch). Though a major part of French equipment during 1917, it has fallen into obscurity even among students of the period, and it is only fair to mention it had a reputation as a very difficult machine to fly, being both prone to spin and very hard to pull out of a spin once one was begun.
This particular machine, C5472, was part of Escadrille C575, formed at Port Said in August of 1918, and retained as a mainstay of French air power in the region, based at Beirut, till 1921.
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Pulling out of the spin was partly fixed by making the vertical stabilizer bigger (this is a late production machine with the modification), but the basic problem was the continued use of wing-warping control. The wing structure was basically that of the earlier G.IV, only with a fuselage.
The motors are indeed LeRhones, 120hp versions (as opposed to 80hp models on the G.IV). I have read an account by a man who flew both types, and his report is that the G.IV was much more pleasnt to fly, and more manouverable, but that the G.VI was much better if you faced a fight.
I am not surprised you have never seen one of these, they really have fallen down the memory hole, even though they equipped about half of French reconnaisance escadrilles during 1917. There are not even any wholly relaible drawings of them in circulation; it took a lot of looking, an some fortumate correspondence, to put this together.
Your kind comment is much appreciated.
That is a wonderful model you've made.
I am truly impressed at the detailed work...
My poor fingers just ache as I gaze ...
Thank you, and a very Happy New Year to you and yours!
I put my work upon several sites,mostly Aircraft Resource Center and HyperScale.
Here are a couple more, both in 1/72 (the only scale I do)....
First, a scratch-built Farman Mf.11, of Escadrille MF62, operated at the Third Artois in September, 1915, fitted with a 120cm focal length camera:
Second, a Seversky 'Convoy Fighter', operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service 12th Kokutai (Wing) out of Nanking in 1939. It is from a resin kit by Kora Models, and finished in aluminum foil, distressed by boiling with egg-shells. As this plane was quite similar to the then still first line USAAC P-35, the sale of twenty of these to Japan produced something of a scandal....
