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Maurice Farman M.F. 11, Escadrille MF 62


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My first post on this is a bit tardy, but I have been working on the wee beast for a while. A move put a serious crimp in my modeling, and wife has been busy past the point of taking pictures.

The M.F. 11 was a pusher type, with exposed longerons and a nacelle containing the crew, motor and fuel supply. For those un-familiar with machines of this sort, predominant in the early days of aviation, here is a picture of one in flight:

http://www.earlyaviator.com/archive/image8/MFS11_flight.jpg

The M.F. 11 (also known as the S.11, and as 'the Shorthorn') was a pre-war design, equipping several French escadrilles at the outbreak of the war. It stood up better than most types to the test of actual service conditions, and was declared the standard French reconnaisance type in planning documents towards the end of October 1914. That the Farman Bros. factory was the largest existing aeroplane factory in France doubtless played a role in its wide employment, but despite its oddity to modern eyes, its performance was comparable, and in some cases superior, to that of contemporary tractor designs. Towards the end of 1915, the M.F.. 11 was phased out of front-line service with the Aviation Militaire on the Western Front.

I have approached this one by sub-assemblies; first the wings, then the nacelle, and then the tail assembly.

Here is the wing assembly as it stands at present. Photographs of MF 62 machines show strut bracing to the upper wing tips; this has yet to be added. The wings are scored and bent, then filed, scraped and sanded to give then their heavy camber. Ribs are indicated by scraping with the edge of a curved blade, and sanding with rolls of sand-paper.

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The clear varnished linen finish on the wings was translucent, and the interior structure and markings on the upper surfaces of a wing showed through from below. Structure is simply drawn in with a No. 2 pencil on the white ground of the styrene sheet, and over-painted with thin paint in an un-bleached linen tone. The 'ghost roundels are painted on, over-painted thinly, then structure drawn, and over-painted once more.

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Here are some pictures of the nacelle. This was mostly covered in aluminum panels, with a wooden floor. A good deal of detail, such as wind-screen, coaming, control horns, and exhaust system, remain to be added.

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The cut-out at the bottom allows the cooling fan of the 80hp Renault motor to draw air. The copper bit before the fan housing is the fuel tank: the fuel feed pipe remains to be added.

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Here are some looks into the nacelle interior. The blunt upper decking of the nose was about the most difficult part so far: it began as a solid block of plastic, several squares of 2mm sheet laminated together, and carved, scraped and filed and sanded inside and out till very little remained. The rest was a pretty straight-forward construction of an open-topped box from sheet.

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The white bit in the center of the instrument panel is a map-board, a pretty standard feature of French service machines. The control wires from the rudder pedals can be seen leading up: they exit the nacelle above the nacelle longerons in front of the instrument panel. The 'handlebars' on the stick control the ailerons, and a heavy link chain goes down from them to the actual control wires.

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These pictures give a fair look at the motor as well. This is completely scratch-built, and contains about a hundred separate pieces of plastic. The cover between the cylinder heads concentrated the cooling air from the fan, and also saved me a great deal of work representing magnetos and wires and some very oddly shaped cylinder heads. The motor was mounted to the nacelle, and its bearer structure built up around it afterwards.

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This is the seat assembly, much magnified. This bench arrangement does not look too comfortable, but was fairly common in French machines of the period. Since the seats project up to the cockpit edge, and might be dislodged by handling, this will go in last after the wind-screen and coaming and other details are added.

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Here is the tail assembly under construction. The horizontal tail-plane was made in the same manner as the wings. The boom assemblies were built up on a pattern drawn on graph-paper with double-faced tape used to hold the pieces in place.

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The lines to which the boom assemblies are matched here is taken directly from the cut-outs in the trailing edges of the wings, so I have high hopes for the eventual mating of this to the wing assembly.

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:huh: You are truly a master of your craft!

Thank you, Sir! I did not feel like one towards the end of my first pass at assembling the wings, when with two struts to go I managed to drop the thing. Just about every attachment broke, and I had to make new struts and re-do some of the holes.

My intention this coming weekend is to finish the nacelle, get it attached, and begin rigging the wings. With help and favor of the modeling gods, this may start coming together towards completion fairly quickly.

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The modeling gods were kind, Gentlemen: I have the nacelle pretty much complete and attached to the wings, and the great bulk of the wing cellule's structural rigging complete.

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The nacelle is pitched nose-down on this machine: the wings have back-stagger to the line of thrust , but not relative to themselves, as the interplane struts are properly rigged at right angles to the spars.

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If the modeling gods continue their benevolence, next weekend should see the tail assembly completed, attached, and rigged, with work commenced on the landing gear.

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Here are a couple of magnified pictures of the motor, and the attachment of the nacelle at the rear. A small amount of rigging remains to be done in this area.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Hi

This is a wonderful job and I am particularly happy to see this type of aircraft in this GB.

Patrick

Thank you, Sir!

I was very happy to see this build proposed, as I have long been interested in the old observation machines of the Great War, and thought they ought to be represented.

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I have made a great deal of progress over the last two weekends. The modeling gods have continued their benevolence, and through a couple of hard tests. There is not much more to be done before this can be called complete.

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The tail boom has been attached, and the undercarriage skids constructed and attached. Wheels are complete but not yet attached, and the vertical tail surfaces are made, and ready to receive national and identification markings. I am holding off on attaching the latter because there are still a few things that need the model turned over onto its back, and their attachment will be fragile.

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The tail boom is not the original piece in the pictures above. I managed one of those truly dumb mistakes you can only make properly when you have a long interest in a topic. I had gotten into my head the booms were of wood, and did not check my reference photographs until the last minute. They are not of wood, but of steel tube, and so the square-section piece I had made was unsuitable. I made new ones from 1mm round rod, which is a hair over-scale I expect, but not seriously enough to matter. The new ones I assembled onto the model, first the 'lattice' pieces, and then the tail-plane. I also had to shave a bit off the trailing cut outs in the wings to widen them so the booms would line up squarely behind the interplane struts. On the under-surface of the tail-plane is rigging that mirrors what is visible here on its upper surface.

I spent a day making a 120cm focal length 'grande appariel' camera, but I will not know if I can use it till I have added the control runs for the rudder and elevators. It is going to be close....

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Here are some shots focusing on the rigging. The structural rigging of the wings is now complete, as is the structural rigging of the tail assembly. The undercarriage rigging is almost complete; it still lacks wires bracing the tips of the nose-over skids. The final layer of rigging will be the control runs, which will include the addition of actuating horns at the nose of the nacelle, and various horns on control surfaces, and pulleys mounted at several points on struts and wings.

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Very nice. Scratch building is something I have always been lacking in. I'm particularly glad to see that you are building it in the "gentleman's scale".

Thank you, Sir!

Scratch building is not as difficult in execution as it may seem in anticipation. In some ways it is easier in 1/72 since, owing to the smaller size of components, you can achieve things with suggestion that a larger scale would require to be much more explicit.

I am in any case with you on the scales divide: I was hooked early on 1/72, and have never seen a reason to reconsider.

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Ths is an 'almost done' up-date, Gentlemen: with the continued benevolence of the modeling goods, I expect to complete that last remaining bits tonight. What remains is to rig the vertical tail surfaces, run the upper elevator and rudder control lines back from the nacelle, do the aileron rigging atop the upper wing, and add a propeller and an etevee air-speed indicator. The 'box' alongside the nacelle to port is a 120cm focal length camera, used for detail shots of known points of interest. The model rests on the front page of the period manual obtained from the WWI Aeroplanes people that has been of such help in constructing this.

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It REALLY turned out nice-and in 1/72! You made it look pretty effortless. The camera box really makes it :deadhorse1:

Ken

Thank you, Sir!

The camera is my favorite bit, too. It took me a day to build it, and I was afraid I might not be able to use it, as the tolerances for the space between the nacelle side and the control wires from the nose where it goes were very slim. I wound up having to cut a hole in it to accommodate a foot step there (you can see its mate on the other side). The steps are over-scale in thickness, but not obviously so to the eye; however, that did matter for the camera, and the nacelle attachment is too fragile to risk having tried to shave it off even with a fresh blade. The positioning is a little conjectural, but I feel pretty sure of it. The photograph I have is taken from the starboard side, and captioned with a statement the camera protruded through the cockpit floor, but it does not look that way to me, and given the internal arrangements, with the seats on the bench, it does not make sense. Also, the picture shows both people in the beast, and does not show the top of the camera between them, where it would have to be in the central position.

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