Cpl. Guynemer's Morane Parasol, July 19. 1915

[Old Man]

I finished this a couple of weeks ago, but have only now been able to take photographs.

[Old Man]

[Skyking]

Hi there OldMan,

Good to see your work again. Very nice build of a somewhat obscure subject. That wing pylon looks like it had to give you your share of sleepless nights. It came off very well though.

I am building Gavi's Pfalz E-I for a review for Internet Modeler and it's interesting to see the French version of basically the same airframe; the difference being the Pfalz has the wing shoulder mounted rather than pylon mounted, although there was a version of the Pfalz that also did a parasol model.

What's next on your table?

Cheers

Mike

[Old Man]

Thank you very much, Gentlemen.

I am glad you enjoyed the wee beastie, Mr. Shackleford.

You have indeed, Mr. King, put your finger on the trickiest part of the project. I am not one hundred percent satisfied with it, but after several removals and adjustments, finally reached that point where the only thing to do is show it to the wife and ask her to tell me to knock it off, that further fiddling will certainly make me more of new problems than it solves of old ones.

I presume the Pfalz kit is in 1/48, Sir? I will be looking forward to the appearance of your article. Pfalz began as pretty much Morane-Saulnier Bavaria, and imitated down to the trademark on the cowling initially. Morane-Saulnier in those days did pretty much one aeroplane, in various sizes, with occassional stringer fairings around the rectangular fuselage structure for further variety. The "Parasol" was pretty much the Type G two-seater, with the shoulder mounted wing of that version replaced atop the pylon. The single-seat H, just a scaled dopwn G, I believe, was the root of the Pfalz you are building, and also of the Type N "monocoque" with its stringer-faired fuselage. The Type L deserves to be less obscure than I suppose it is, having some signifigant milestones to its credit, perhaops the most important being that it was the first production machine officially assigned duties by an air force command that included fighting other aeroplanes aloft.

I am now working on the early Breguet mentioned in my signature line. It is a distinctly odd duck of a flying machine, that by all accounts proved wholly unsuited to active service, though in its peace-time year before the war there do not seem to have been too many complaints. It is just one of those things, though, that from my first look at a picture of it years ago I wanted to see as a model: it makes the D.F.W. "Mars" machines look like the belle of the ball. I have got the fuselage halves made, and am working on the interior.

[ross blackford]

:D Hello Old Man,

Beautiful, fantastic work as always. Thank you for sharing your work and skills with us again. I can't wait to see the Breguet. Keep up the fine work you do, you show many of us how it's done and I think we can learn a lot from your work and attitude.

Again, great to see your work here.

Cheers,

Ross.

[mkimages]

Wow, that's truly impressive. Beautiful work.