History

I won't go into a lengthy history of the Nieuport single-seat series of aircraft. Just suffice it to say that the Nieuport series was one of the most important ranges of aircraft during WW1.

The British were the only ones to use the Nieuport 17bis extensively. It appears that only one French flyer used the Nie.17bis to any extent, and that being Charles Nungesser.

The Kits

Each Nieuport consists of a multitude of resin parts. It appears they both have the same number and break down - the major difference between the two types being different fuselage halves, cowls, engines and decals - the Nie.17 comes with an extra sheet. Otherwise they're both the same.

The fuselage of the Nie.17, unfortunately, suffers in a few areas. First, since it's a copy of the Revell kit, there are two major exterior problems. The rear of the fuselage isn't deep enough, and there is no exhaust channel under the cowl. Deepening the fuselage is as easy as adding styrene sheet and the channel is easy to add by filing/sanding, and possibly filling any holes. Other changes to the Nie17 include adding cockpit details - Choroszy supplies a little, but it's not enough. The seat should probably be replaced, and the cowl has a number of omissions - the lack of strengthening straps on the top, the lack of cooling holes on the forward, bottom, and the lack of "ovals" where the cowl meets the landing gear struts.

The Nie.17bis suffers from none of these problems. The cowl is decent enough, the cockpit practically complete and the errors with the fuselage aren't there - the exhaust channel does exist and the fuselage is deep enough.

The rest of both kits are practically spot on. The only aspect I personally don't like are the interplane 'V' struts and how Choroszy has chose to represent the fabric tapes. In my opinion it's best to represent these with strips of painted decal instead of having anything added during the molding phase.

In fact, one pet peeve with me and all other Nieuport kits are the wings - most being small and not shaped correctly. The Choroszy wings are awesome, down to the separately molded aileron cranks.

Construction naturally starts with the cockpit, and Choroszy supplies the braces that fit under the seat, although these won't be seen. Other cockpit details include a seat (best replaced in both kits), control column, rudder pedals and rudder kick plate. Both kits also include an instrument panel, but most Nieuports did not have an instrument panel, instead having instruments placed within the cockpit in various places (best to find references, especially for the British Nie.17bis).

Once the cockpit is complete, construction continues naturally with the rest - tail surfaces, lower wings, etc. Painting, decaling, then adding the upper wing and all struts naturally end the biplane's construction.

The Nie.17 comes with decals for Nungesser's as well as a Polish machine, while the Nie.17bis comes with decals for a British machine (the Nie.17 also came with the British markings). I'll use the Nie.17 Nungesser decals on the Nie.17bis, as I have another scheme in mind for the Nie.17.

Conclusion

These are excellent kits. Unfortunately the Nie.17 has the same errors one finds with the Revell fuselage, but luckily the rest of the kit is practically spot on. There is nothing wrong with the Nie.17bis and both are recommended, but with the caveats that follow all resin kits.

My thanks to Choroszy Modelbud for the review kits.