Home Forums Air and Sea Air Can anyone help to ID this little 1:300 scale aircraft

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  • #99962
    Avatar photoDave Crowe
    Participant

    Hi folks, I’ve got a bit of a mystery here.

    I thought it was maybe a Fieseler Fi 156 Storch but the front end is all wrong for that…


    Dewoitine D.371
    Ryan YO-51 Dragonfly
    Spirit of St. Louis

     

    Any ideas?
    many thanks folks

    #99966
    Avatar photoPatrick
    Participant

    Hi Dave,

    As you said, the nose is most certainly wrong for the Storch and it doesn´t work for Spirit of St.Louis either. The landing gear isn´t in the right place for the Dragonfly, so my guess would be a Lockheed Vega, what do you think? It is very possible I am wrong, but if that isn´t what it is, it could be used for one. 🙂

     

    #99971
    Avatar photoMr. Average
    Participant

    That’s a weird one!  It looks to me like it could be a slightly mis-designed PZL P.11, or possibly a Nakajima Army Type 91 with a wierdened-up elevator plane.  The shape of the tailplane rules out anything from the First World War (too big, I think) so this is probably something interwar.

    #99972
    Avatar photoPatrick
    Participant

    I can´ t tell, is that an open cockpit? If so, then my idea for the Lockheed is absurd. 🙂

    #99992
    Avatar photozippyfusenet
    Participant

    The Nakajima Army Type 91 looks like the most probable subject. This scan is from Kenneth Munson Fighters Between the Wars. I couldn’t find another single-seat open cockpit parasol monoplane that was even close. The horizontal stabilizer is too short and stubby, but other features match. It couldn’t be anything PZL because no gull wing.

     

    You'll shoot your eye out, kid!

    #100001
    Avatar photoDeleted User
    Member

    My observations
    The tail looks like Curtis or British.
    The rounded horizontal stab make me think British.
    Long and flat fuselage side.
    W shape cut above the cockpit (too distinctive to ignore and rules out pretty much everything I’ve seen).
    Landing gear struts that goes straight up to the wings.
    Engine has full cowling but is close to the wings and the long fuselage makes me think early inter war.

    What scale is the mini? Who made it? Considering the market it can’t be something that rare, it either has to be mass produced or famous, something worth selling.

    #100015
    Avatar photoDave Crowe
    Participant

    Well, all I know is it came with an eBay (UK) job lot of unknown manufacture of 1:300 metals that included German bombers (He 111 Ju 88 and Stuka)  some Russian I-16 fighters (dodgey ones also of unknown lineage ) and some more  Germans (More Stukas and a Bf 109) which I’m pretty sure are Scotia. So given that none of that was Japanese I’m a bit at a loss to account for an Army Type 91 amongst it. It’s an odd fish and possibly quite old.

    Thanks for your help folks. Given our inconclusive outcome I may get a file and some greenstuff out and see if I can’t just make it into a Fieseler Storch. Especially since I can’t get one from either Scotia or H&R.

    Looks like a revised front end and some longer legs might cover it. A bit more glass around the cockpit too. Unless anyone knows of a 1:300 Storch supplier in the UK?

    #100016
    Avatar photoMike Headden
    Participant

    Heroics & Ros – GA301 – Fiesler Storch £1.25

    According to their website at least.

    There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

    #100028
    Avatar photoMattH
    Participant

    Looks like it could be the Morane-Saulnier radial engined version of the Storch, probably the MS-505. But the model looks like it has an open cockpit? And the tail shape doesn’t look quite right, so still not sure.

    https://www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled/Morane-Saulnier-MS-505-Criquet/1235183

    EDIT: actually, I think it’s more likely the Dewoitine D371 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewoitine_D.371

    #100069
    Avatar photoDave Crowe
    Participant

    Heroics & Ros – GA301 – Fiesler Storch £1.25 According to their website at least.

    well Mike you’re right. Dang it why didn’t I find that? Must’ve spelled it wrong in my search. We’ll certainly makes things a bit easier. Many thanks for pointing that out.

    No prizes for guessing what plane I’m thinking of painting up.

    #100331
    Avatar photoDave Crowe
    Participant

    Well, I’ve been hard at work with a file and some green stuff and I’ve begun converting this thing into something resembling a Nakajima Army Type 91. I’ll snap a pic when it’s done.

    #100406
    Avatar photoDave Crowe
    Participant

    Well it was a fiddly business but here’s the conversion.
    i
    Lots of greenstuff went on. Filed and reshape the tail and bulked up the dorsal area and the spinner hub.

    Cut a radial engine shape into the front and added a Townend ring-type cowling with some brown paper and some staple wire for wing-bracing struts.

    I just left those strange undercarriage struts in place up under the wing to keep the wheels strong but all in all I’m pretty happy with that.

    So then I painted it up…

    In Chinese Colours!!!

    But what’s a lovely 30’s Japanese fighter like the Nakajima Army Type 91 doing in Chinese livery? (I hear you cry)

    Well at one time the Chinese Nationalist Air Force had purchased 12 of these from Japan which then later equipped 32nd Squadron during the Second Sino-Japanese War. This fighter is No.505 out of Kwangsi in 1935.

    So there it is. Another obsolescent 30’s chuggaboom for my early war Chinese Nationalist Air Force.
    Many thanks to everyone for your input and direction. Couldn’t done it without yalls know-wotz.

     

    #100407
    Avatar photoDeleted User
    Member

    You even added struts. Too bad you only had one.

    #100408
    Avatar photoMr. Average
    Participant

    You win re: microscale conversions.

    #100410
    Avatar photozippyfusenet
    Participant

    I love it. What a great outcome!

    You'll shoot your eye out, kid!

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