Czech Masters Resin 1/72nd Sopwith 5F1 Dolphin By Pedro Nuno Soares

The desire to improve the pilot's overall view in the context of a bi-plane platform led to Sopwith's Chief designer Herbert Smith playing about with the concept of what would eventually become not only Sopwith's only water cooled engined fighter aircraft (apart from the experiment with 2 triplanes) but also the world's first multi-gun fighter, supporting as standard equipment 2 forward firing, synchronized Vickers machine guns, installed above the engine, that could be complemented with 2 Lewises clamped to a structural cross member of the cockpit structure.

The strange looking aircraft, which was a result of having the top wing centered on the cockpit opening to allow the pilot, whose head protruded above it, unrestricted view on a 360º plan, had a not often seen backstagger to the wing arrangement (only other example I can think of being the DH5, of course). This idiosyncracy was the main reason for prospective pilots to be at first less than enthusiastic about the new airplane, an opinion that would be rapidily cast away once the full potential of the highly manuevrable and powerful aircraft was realised. The Dolphin saw the light in prototype form in May 1917 and would soldier on until 1919, when the last examples were dismissed from operational duties, with n. 79 Sqd, that had stayed in Germany after the Armistice with the occupation army.

Dolphin production totalled 1,778 units ditributed over three marks - Dolphin I powered by a 220 hp Hispano Suiza, Dolphin II, with a larger 300hp Hispano, and the later mark III with an ungeared 200 Hispano - all essentially similar in shape, the only differences being on the front fuselage and cowling panels, due to the need to accommodate the 3 different engines.

The aircraft were used operationally in France by sqds nº 19, 23, 79 and 87. By the end of the hostilities sqd 81 was being formed with Canadian pilots and this was the genesis of the 1st Canadian Air Force squadron, that was formed in November 1918, too late to see operational use though.

The Kit

Czech Masters Resin Dolphin is not a new kit but an upgrade of the company's existing kit that is now complemented by a set of excellent transfers.

There are several published scale plans of the Dolphin and since I don't have the Datafile, I checked the parts against the old Peter Gray drawings in Arcraft Archive Vol II and found they matched them almost to perfection the only difference being noticed on the wings which are 1 or 2 mm to each side short in span, and even if this is especially apparent on the top wing, the fault cannot be entirely attributed to the length of the wing itself, as I feel the cockpit opening should be a bit wider too. All things considered I consider the discrepancies to be within acceptable limits although I feel the wheels should probably also be 1 or 2 mm wider in diameter.

The exercise of computing measurements of the fuselage length and wing span of the kit parts against the published dimensions of the Dolphin also yielded the same results, even though I feel the fin and rudder are a bit on the undernourished side, when compared to photos of the real thing, this impression being corroborated by the 1/72nd drawings supplied by CMR as part of the instruction sheets.

The fuselage sides have structural members molded in and there's also a seat, floor, rudder bar and a gas tank, what will result in a reasonably busy cockpit out of the box, but you'll have to do something about the non existent instrument panel.

The only other omission I find on the very well molded and bubble free parts respects the very characteristic and prominent side radiators which on the kit are represented by blunt squares of resin on the side of the fuselage. You might want to drill onto them the very characteristic circular cooling holes since this will surely make a difference.

Mounting the top wing might be a bit tricky, and I suspect one should glue the interplane struts first leaving the very short cabanes to the end of it. Also it's probably a good idea to have the cross bracing wires of the cabanes glued onto their bottom location before attaching the upper wing, because after it might be too late…

The transfer sheet is excellently registered and provides decals for aircraft of all but one of the operational squadrons, (including nº1 CAF), the exception being RAF sqd n.23.

Apart from probably getting the top wing squarely in place, I don't anticipate any out of the ordinary problems in putting this one together and once finished it will fill an important slot in my Sopwith aircraft collection so it'll will now proceed to my workbench for a detailed build up review in a coming issue of IM.

My thanks to CMR for the review kit.