1/48 K & B Sopwith Triplane

Gallery Article by Mike Muth on June 9 2017

 

      

I enjoy building the old kits that I cut my teeth on when I was young. Being a World War I aviation buff, that means the Aurora kits. These were produced during the 1960s and provided reasonably accurate models for the time. While the scale accuracy wasn't perfect it was good enough for me. The Sopwith Triplane kit was first manufactured in 1963, in shiny black plastic. I think the idea was to make it into one of Raymond Collishaw's "Black Fight" airplanes. The kit was re-released in 1972 by K&B, a subsidiary of Aurora. The parts count for the kit was pretty basic. One of the things that sticks out on the kit (1963 & 1972) are raised insignia markings. I don't know if the idea was to use this as a guide for painting the roundels, etc. but it requires sanding down to remove it; unfortunately that also removes the rib tapes. In 1995 Eduard released the first modern Sopwith Triplane in 1/48 scale. This was around the time Eduard emerged from being a limited run kit company to something special. Anyway, I had an old K&B kit that I wanted to make and decided to use some of the Eduard parts to jazz it up a little. I guess I could have just made the Eduard kit, but nostalgia carried the day.

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The K&B kit is in a neutral tan color with some of the parts still in black. The parts fit together without any major fuss. What I really like about this kit is the ease of aligning the 3 wings. Instead of a small hole in which to locate an equally small pin on the struts, there is an oval shaped recess in the wing that fits the shape of the strut. There were no major problems with putting the kit together. I used some of the Eduard pieces for the cockpit, machine gun and wheels. For painting I used Model Master Field Drab to represent the PC-10 applied to the fuselage and top of the flying surfaces. I decanted MM Modern Desert Sand and then airbrushed it to represent clear doped lined. Tires in WW I didn't have black added to the rubber, so the color varied from shades of pink to gray. When I do Allied airplanes I use gray. For Central Powers airplanes I go with a pinkish-tan. The metal cowling was achieved using MM non-buffing aluminum. WW I airplanes had a glossy look to them, unlike the flat colors of WW II airplanes, so I used some Pledge Acrylic Floor product (a/k/a/Future) to give it a shine. The rigging was accomplished gluing silver thread with ca into pre-drilled holes. I didn't fully rig the Triplane, no double flying wires, etc. So if you plan on doing a WNW kit or a fully rigged Eduard, don't use this build as a rigging guideline.

The Sopwith Triplane  was the successor to the Sopwith Pup. It predated  and may have been an inspiration for Anthony Fokker's more famous triplane. The Sopwith was powered by a Clerget rotary engine. Its 3 narrow span wings resulted in a highly maneuverable airplane with great pilot visibility. Originally intended for the RFC, the Triplane ended up only serving in RNAS squadrons and with some French escadrilles. The standard armament for the Triplane was a single Vickers machine gun synchronized to shoot forward through the spinning propeller.

"Hilda" was flown by R.R.Soar from March 1-17, 1917. It was named after his cousin. The Hilda decals were from the Eduard kit and were very fragile. Fortunately I had 2 Eduard kits and I needed the decals from both to get it on both sides of the fuselage. Soars scored 8 of his total 12 victories in a Sopwith Triplane. I probably would have preferred a Triplane from the Black Flight but didn't have the proper decals. This was an enjoyable build. The only draw back is the complicated rigging, which would require more than just basic modeling skill. If you have rigged a few biplanes, however, the rigging shouldn't present much of a problem.

Mike Muth

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Photos and text © by Mike Muth