Scratchbuilt 1/72 Santos Dumont 14bis
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Introduction
Oh, the flair and charm of the combination of French and Brazilian blood!
Monsieur Santos Dumont does not need introduction to the aviation world,
and his well renowned 14 bis is a familiar –although somewhat awkward-
sight.
This box kite-based pusher canard design left the earth in 1906 after
some tests and adjustments, much to the delight of the crowd at Bagatelle.
Stoically standing at his piloting post with unmovable face, Santos Dumont
made a place for himself in posterity.
A relatively large model in 1/72 with some attractive detail, this one
is not a difficult one to try. As usual, much to the delight of the scratch-builder,
references differ from each other and also the plane went trough a few
modifications. As usual too, I made my –mostly arbitrary- choices.
The images will provide a clue of the building sequence, materials and
subassemblies. The only detail probably worth to mention is the “wicker
gondola”, made of double-sided, wicker-pattern printed paper. In
the original plane, this was a remnant of Santos-Dumont previous experiences
with dirigibles.
The plane was propelled by a Levavasseur Antoinette-type engine, which
I replicated to some extent.
This pusher canard had at the front end a sort of omni-directionally
moving surface, in order to achieve control.
Acrylics were airbrushed over a colored pencil-marked surface in order
to convey some “depth” and the illusion of translucence. Metal
details were picked up in enamel using a fine point “Pilot”
metallic marker.
I simplified the rigging a tad in order to expedite things, but I guess
the general impression is good.
A little decal was custom made in the house printer for the only marks
on the side of the fuselage.
The type got a recent rush of popularity after a full-size flying –well,
so so flying- replica was made in Brazil. I tried to convey the glamour
of the era tweaking some photos a little with an image-processing application.
Get a moustache, a bamboo cane and go to the nearest park to get inspired.
To say Ooh La La to a passing beauty may help.
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