Roden 1/72 Albatros D.III By Neil Crawford

Introduction

I was at the biggest IPMS competition in Sweden this weekend, called IPMS-Open it is regarded as the Swedish Nat's. One of the nice things there is a guy who takes a ferry over the Baltic (from Estland I believe) with his car full of Russian and Ukrainan kits - he buys as much as he sells so everyone gains! He had a big pile of Roden kits, there was the Albatros D.I, D.II and .DIII (also all the Gothas but that's another story). I picked up the Albatros D.III immediately, because it is in Revell's series of WW1 aircraft, and one of my silly ideas is to build all that series, though not necessarily using the Revell kits. The kit is so new that it hasn't reached all the retailers yet, so Bob asked me to do an "In the box review", I'm not an Albatros expert, but I happened to have just read Ray Rimell's old review of the Revell D.III in Windsock, so at least I can compare them, I can't compare with the forthcoming Eduard – some say that it may be even better – but that is in the future, I also may have missed some of the finer points, but I would suggest listening in on the WW1 list for progressive updates.

The Kit

First the good news, it's fantastic! And there isn't any bad news that I could see. Moulding quality is wonderful, with lots of tiny parts, also there was that sprue with generic parts I've seen mentioned. There is a complete Mercedes engine, Spandaus, a couple of Parabellum machine guns, and ammunition drums, very useful stuff, even though all of it isn't for the DIII

The rear fuselage is not as good as I originally thought, it has the same problem as the Revell kit, it is about 1-1.5mm too shallow, about 40 thou which is what Ray says about the Revell kit, but slab-sided as it should be, and ends with a flat knife-edge, just like it should. I must qualify this by saying that I'm measuring against an Ian Stair drawing from 1989, maybe modern science has revised the measurements, but I'm sorry to say that I couldn't get the kit parts to match up to the drawings. To fix this you would need to saw a slot in the rear fuselage and fit a plasticard wedge. This might throw out the lower wing placing, in fact no fun at all. It might be better to leave it alone, I'd like to see a built up kit, it is perhaps not so noticeable. Certainly much better than the old Revell kit, but not perfect. Louvres are neatly molded, in fact, if I've read the instructions correctly there are too many, and some should be cut off, check references carefully!

Wings are in three parts, I would have preferred them in one piece, but if getting them in three, means they are better moulded, then I can live with a spot of filler. It may also be because the D.III kit has wings for all D.III variants, with three types of radiator: central; moved right and A-H type. The radiators are works of art, P/E parts are unnecessary I think. There was a little flash but who cares? Ailerons are correctly shaped, there are two types of ailerons, and they HAVE WASHOUT! There are some interior parts, not a lot, but very nice, and much better than Revell (which has none).

Not only the ribs on the tail are marked, but also the cross members, so you get a sort of square pattern. I thought it looked rather classy, but after looking at a few photos, I'm beginning to think it might be a little overdone, I can usually only see ribs. Maybe you can subdue it a little with a few passes of sandpaper.Struts are thin, joined at the top in the centre section, the carbanes of the D.II-D.Va were joined at the top, so the model is correct, you don't have to do any trench filling.

Nice cover-art (Berthold) and beautiful decals for just about any plane you like, I counted 11 alternatives, Voss, Allmenroeder, Schaeffer, Loewenhardt, von Bertrab, Loerzer, Berthold, the two Richthofen brothers, the captured one called "Vera, amongst others.

Conclusion

The kit cost me about $9 which is reasonable by Swedish standards. Maybe I'm extra lyrical because I've never seen a Roden before, but if they're all like this, then Hasegawa and Tamiya can stop production!