Roden 1/72nd Sopwith F.I Camel By Paul Thompson

Background

Hands up all those who don't know what a Sopwith Camel is? Ah. Thought not. But to be on the safe side I'll mention that this is one of those legendary machines that most people still recognise, even if the only other plane they know from the Great War had 3 wings and was coloured red. For its day the Camel was fast, agile, climbed well, and packed a serious punch. Unfortunately its handling was very idiosyncratic, and unless they had the height to recover, many pilots converting to the type were killed by it instead. But if you could get it off the ground safely and survive long enough to get the best from it you'd realise that you were flying an ace-making machine on a par with the Fokker D.VII. It's service life didn't extend much beyond the Armstice due to the rake of replacement types then on offer, and it was rather too dangerous to find favour as a civilian runabout or racer. It's also famous for being the only aeroplane that private Baldrick wanted to be.

The Interesting Bit (The Kit)

For millions of years the only readily available and halfway decent kit of any mark of Camel in 1/72nd has been the venerable offering by Revell. At the time of writing this has just been re-issued, but although a good kit for it's day, and still easily brought up to 'modern' standards with a bit of not too arduous work it's not a serious contender compared to the new Roden kit. For the record, the other Camels I'm aware of in injection molded plastic are the rather sad Airfix 2F.I naval Camel (superceded by Roden's previous Camel release), and an entirely humorous offering from Keilkraft that you'd best forget I mentioned.

Roden have previously produced a 2F.I (which was okay except for an oddly shaped tailplane) and a trenchfighter version. The latter was a weird choice since only one was made before someone thought twice and abandoned the idea. More are in the pipeline. I think the version everyone who cares has been waiting for is the F.I, used in the greatest numbers and so having the greatest potential variety of finishes, so it's a bit odd the others came out first. No matter, the wait was worth it.

Roden are kings of the multiple option mold, where an alternative sprue or two allows multiple versions of an aircraft. In this case the sprues you will recognise are B and K from the TF.I Camel kit. Those in the 2F.I are marked A, K and I, but the K sprue is actually completely different. That's not terribly exciting, so enough of this gay banter, what do you actualy get? Well, working from the outside inwards:

1. An end opening box with an interesting painting of a Camel belonging to Major Barker, fairly early in it's career when he was still a Captain. He also gets a potted bio printed on the picture. On the back is a colour painting guide for this machine, with colours indicated by Humbrol paint number and the relevant name. This is repeated in black and white on the instructions.

2. Inside, 2 bags. In one bag, 3 sprues of light grey/brown plastic (B, D and K, if you must know). These are all very crisply molded with virtually no flash or misalignment on my sample. I must add that although the box looks flimsy, this one has crossed the Atlantic several times in search of a house number before reaching me. At some stage an elephant (the post offices of most countries keep a few on hand, specially trained) had sat on it. But. It was completely undamaged. No parts broken.

3. In another bag, the instructions, a film with a windscreen printed on it, and a beautifully printed decal sheet with markings for 8 machines. Of course, you've got to be wary with Roden decals - they're constantly getting better, and these look alright, but I will be testing a few spare bits before slapping them on the model.

Accuracy

This is with reference to the Albatros publications Windsock Datafile, with plans from 1991 by Ian R. Stair, based on Sopwith drawings. Throwing the bits on the plans, the tailplane/elevator, fin/rudder, top and lower wing all match up well for size. Inspection panels are represented by raised lines, and they missed one, but this won't cause the heat-death of the universe The rear tips of the lower ailerons are a tad too rounded, but not much. I'd leave it.

Suprisingly, the fuselage is 2-3 mm too short. This seems to occur somewhere between the tailpost and the back of the cockpit. It still looks okay compared to photographs, so it could be the plans that are wrong. I've no idea. Maybe the plans got stretched.

All the small surface details are good. In fact I can't really fault any of the execution, except the picket rings under the lower wings. Brave attempt, but if you must have them, I'd cut them off and sustitute a twist of fusewire. The wing ribs and fuselage stringers are particularly nice.

Details

I jotted down a few things that grabbed my attention - here they are, in no particular order. The engines supplied are detailed down to the level of sparkplugs. The cockpit is nicely furnished, needing only seat belts and a hand pump, plus the carburretor intake pipe visible under the instrument panel. The throttle assembly is a little clumsy but good enough given the visibility. The instrument panel is very nice, although you'll need to find your own instrument faces. The split axle is done very well, with the axle halves molded so that the tops of the wheels cant inwards a bit. Excellent. I hate having to do that from scratch. The pitot tube is molded to the strut with the relevant cable work - very nice, and a detail often left out. The control wire exit points on the fuselage and wings are all indicated by small indentations in the right places, and those on the fuselage have slightly heavy reinforcement patches. The only ejector pin marks are where they don't matter, except a slight raised bit either side of the hole for the tailskid, which need a bit of sanding so the rear fuselage closes okay. I found one large sink mark on the gravity fuel tank, but this isn't visible once the fuselage is closed. There's a small prop moulded on the wind generator but this is crude and needs replacing. The filler caps just behind the cockpit are only shown as raised lines. You should really drill them out and stick some sprue in. The central one shouldn't be - it needs to be offset to starboard a small amount. The carb intakes need drilling out. There’s a fairing behind them which you may need to trim off depending on which aircraft you model, and you’ll need to work that out for yourself.

Instructions

Usual Roden style, with detail painting called out by letters coded to Humbrol paints. Most of these seem reasonable, but you'll need references for the details, and I seriously suggest you ignore their usage of Humbrol 108 WWI green for PC10. There are fewer steps than normal for Roden, and this is not a Good Thing because some of the placement guides are too vague. It's not a showstopper though. There are 2 types of spinner provided for some of the colour options, and these are keyed clearly to the plans. Unless I'm missing something, however, the choice of airscrew is left to yourself.

One big plus point is a rigging section, with a 3/4 view that gives you all the main wirey bits, and 4 scrap views for control lines and tail bracing. For once the flying wires are shown double, and the distinctive asymetrical forward cabane bracing is shown (although how you do it, and represent the streamlined acorn fairing, is your own problem of course).

For the record, here's a list of the aircraft covered by the decals. It's take too long to point out the variations in colour, but most are based on PC10 overall, with variations in cowl (red, black, unpainted or grey) and wheel covers (red, black, CDL, etc). There's a home defense example and one in overall black, but you need to make your own Holt flares.

1. B6313, 28 Sqn RFC, Captain Barker, Grossa airfield, Italy, 1918
2. D6402, 43 Sqn RAF, Captain Woollett, Touquin, Summer 1918
3. F2137, 46 Sqn RAF, Captain Donald MacLaren, Athies, October 1918
4. B6390, 13 Sqn RNAS, F/Cdr. R. Collishaw, Oostende, December 1917
5. B7270, 209 Sqn RAF, Captain A R Brown Bertangles, April 1918
6. Unknown serial, 37 Sqn RAF, (Home Defense), Lt.Hollington, Stow Maries, Summer 1918
7. Unknown serial, 44 Sqn RFC, Lt.W A Pratt, Hainault Farm, early 1918
8. Maybe F1955, South Russia Instructional Mission, Ekatorinodar, Captain S M Kinkead, 1919

I've only found photos so far for 1, 4, 7 and 8. The markings as supplied seem accurate for these. Pity there’re no horribly garish trainer schemes included, but there were some made by Blue Rider that you could probably track down.

Nearly the End

You may have hoped I'd be finished by now, but because I've started the build here's a couple of extra points. Being a Roden kit there are many spare parts by the time you're done. What we have this time is:

A Lewis gun and 3 ammo drums, 4 Cooper bombs on a rack, rudder pedals, round type control column grip, a throttle, 1 or 2 spinners according to which, if any, you use, a tailskid, an airscrew, an engine, and an amorphous little rod type thing that could be anything.

I've got the fuselage together and can tell you that fit is generally good. The front decking and turtledeck sit well on the fuselage sides and should not need any filler once glued. The lower wings don't fit well. This happens so often with Roden I think they do it on purpose. Nonetheless, careful sanding is all that's needed to cure this. The plastic itself is a joy to work with, cutting and sanding easily, and being less brittle than previously. For the first time ever I didn't break anything when cutting out and tidying things up.

Conclusion

Excellent. This may change with experience, but I hope to have a completed build report ready for the next IM. I'll save the reference list for then.

Thanks to Roden for supplying the review kit.