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1/72 Toko Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter (TV version)


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In 1917 a member of Belgian intelligence, disgusted by their lack of professionalism and activity, tricks his way into a transfer into French intelligence. Due to his American upbringing, he is assigned to the Lafayette Escadrille as a reconnaissance photographer on one of the squadron's Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutters. As a veteran of the Flanders and Verdun front lines, he thinks this will be an easy assignment. He doesn't yet know the average lifespan of aircrew is measured in minutes. The name of this intelligence officer is Henri Defense, although you might know him by his given name, Henry Jones Jr.. Or maybe by his nickname, "Indiana".

 

I was a big fan of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, and I've been wanting to do this particular airplane from the episode "Attack of the Hawkmen" for a while. There were two aircraft used in the episode, a full scale ground model and a quarter-scale flying model with a few minor differences between them. There are also some differences between the show aircraft and the real Strutter, and I will use the show details where these conflict.

 

Here is what the show aircraft looks like, with its weird combination of British paint scheme and French roundels:

 

nI1sUWS.jpg

 

I'm using the Eastern Express reboxing of the Toko kit. Here are the parts as they currently are:

 

eTxvHO9.jpg

 

Before this started I cleaned some of the main parts. I also did some scratchwork on the seat, giving it that farm basket look that WWI pilots loved.

 

MfwKNwu.jpg

 

 

Edited by spejic
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I painted the interior of the fuselage Tamiya Buff, which helped me determine that Tamiya Buff wasn't the right color. But I'm going to leave it in order to darken up the cockpit a bit and make more contrast with the interior wood bracing. I then painted the bracing MM Light Flesh Base and then brushed on some burnt sienna oil paint to make it look slightly wood-like.

 

I'll wait a week until the oil paint dries, spray some gloss coat, and then give it a wash to clean things up cuz that oil stuff is messy.

 

I painted the propeller Tamiya NATO Brown for it's first step. I also did the wood effects for the various bits in the cockpit (seat, stick, floor bracing) but I didn't take pictures of those.

 

FuM2YcR.jpg

 

I also tried painting the bottom of the wings with various colors to see what I should use and it looks like that MM Light Flesh Base is pretty close to linen.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Now that the oil paint has dried, I did a gloss coat, a wash, a heavy brush of light tan pastel, and a dull coat. Bracing wires (stretched sprue) have been added, as well as the throttle. I guess I will add throttle wires too, since it's simple enough. Next job is building the fuel tanks.

 

CP4TGqp.jpg

 

I'm going to cut off the back half of that upper fuselage part to open the back seat. While one of my kit boxings included a upper fuselage part with a Scarff ring for the rear machine gun, the TV aircraft uses some kind of custom rig that doesn't quite match that so I have to start from a blank canvas.

 

I don't know what kind of instrument panel the real Strutter had, but we get a view of the TV aircraft's instrument panel here:

 

6xzrx7e.jpg

 

I've made a decal design that matches that.

 

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I glued together the fuselage halves because I couldn't properly do the cockpit floor while they were still separate. But before that I drilled some holes and put in the control lines to the tail. I used very fine fishing line which goes in one hole and out the other. The plan is to do all my painting and then drag through some fresh line and then glue it all down, a technique that worked pretty well in my last WWI aircraft.

 

fSGwpqW.jpg

 

It turns out the airplane has a wooden floor, so I used the wood technique on very thin styrene. When I found myself being careful not to crack it along its fake grain I realized I did a good job. I also made the control wheel by sanding down and reaming out the part of the kit that allows the spinner to spin free. I guess I'm gluing that sucker down now.

 

The metal-painted bits are the fuel tank in the front and a metal box between the pilot and observer that I believe was the bomb bay for bomber variants, but in this case will just hide that support bar.

Edited by spejic
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  • 4 weeks later...

I have limited pictures of the Strutter cockpit, but it turns out other Sopwith two-seat aircraft had similar structures in the cockpit so I modified the kit parts to match that information. I cut up that ladder floor part because it only goes in the front seat when the back seat has a gunner, and added spacers under it because it is supposed to be a little bit higher up. I added the side control wheels and the control stick to this little substructure that would just slide into place.

 

And then when I was about to install it I dropped it and then accidentally stepped on it. The seat and control stick are no more. Ah well, at least the kit comes with two of those. Back to the beginning.

 

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