 | The appearance of the excelent Eduard Nieuport 11, in my view their best kit to date, renders this conversion obsolete. This page will be replaced with different content in the near future.
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The Nieuport vee-strut sesquiplanes were in production from the first to the last year of the Great War, a distinction they shared with only a handfull of their contemporaries. Though its' origins can be traced back to even before the conflict, the 1915 Nieuport 11 BeBe was the first of the line to be built from the outset as a single seat scout. The first of many improvements to the formula was the Nieuport 16, an up rated 11 which would lead in turn to arguably the best of the breed the type 17.
Those who wish a Nieuport 16 for their 1/48 scale collection have a choice of options, each of which involves a certain amount of surgery. If you are lucky enough to have laid down a couple of Blue Max Nie 11 it's easy, stick a headrest on one of them. With a little effort those less fortunate can still get a reasonable, if overscale, 11 or 16 from the Smer kit. As currently issued it has a very nice Propagteam decal sheet and optional parts covering both versions. Some time ago a friend of mine extensively re-worked a Smer Nieuport, even to the extent of reducing the scale, and it was his efforts and the advent of the Eduard type 17 which inspired this conversion. I cannot pretend that this is an easy project, and it certainly turned out to be more difficult than anticipated. My plan was to use mostly the Eduard type 17 combined with just one or two parts from the Smer BeBe. In the event it was more like 50-50, with wings and cowling from Smer and the remainder from Eduard. Both source kits are relatively cheap (especialy the Smer offering) and easily available, and though not for the beginer this project should hold no terrors for the avid convertor.
Fuselage
Converting the Nieport 17 fuselage to the earlier slab side form seen on the 11 and 16 is a delicate opperation needing great care in the execution. Start with two vertical saw cuts, one immediately behind the firewall and another at the panel line by the cockpit, then with a sharp knife cut along the fuselage lacing and remove the flank fairings.
The plastic is very soft and cuts easily, but there will not be much material left around the cockpit opening so beware. Use the discarded fairings as templates to manufacture flat replacements from 40thou card, omit the the cut out for the lower wing location as these will be butt jointed as seperate panels.
Glue the replacements in place , sand flush and detail inside and out with thin card and microstrip. The fuselage can now be assembled as per insructions and with internal detail parts suitably trimmed. Very few 16's and probably no 11's were fitted with a Vickers gun, so ammunition trays and ejector chutes can be left off. On the types 16 and 17 the headrest and turtle deck were a one piece plywood molding as is well represented in the kit. For a type 11 the headrest should be removed and the decking re-skinned with scribed 10thou card. The cowling cheek fairings I made from Milliput, though I suppose it's possible to use those from the Smer kit if carefully removed. The cowling itself is the Smer item with 2mm trimmed from the rear edge,
Wings
Plan A was to use cut down Eduard wings, but I discovered that to do so would leave me two ribs short on each panel. Plan B therefor was to clean up the Smer wings. Just a trace of the embossed markings present on the origional Merit molds remains on the kit parts and the wings can be improved with further refinement. To begin with the lower wing is cut down the centre line into two seperate panels.
The lower wing is about 1mm to great in cord and this is removed from the leading edge. Cut each panel to 70mm span, restore the tip and leading edge profiles and refine the trailing edge.
Dont worry about losing lower surface detail, but do take care to preserve that on the upper surface, similarly with the upper wing. The sweepback of the upper wing is not sharp enough and this should be corrected by once again cutting down the centre line.
Increasing the angle will mean that the wing ribs will be slightly off line, but this is not noticable. Remove the ailerons and ensure that the wings trailing edge is parralell to its leading edge. As molded the cord is correct at the aileron break but 1mm over at the centre section cut-out. Make provision for the aileron cranks using the Eduard wings as the pattern.
Wing ribs can now be restored to the lower surfaces of both wings by scribing with a craft knife and lightly sanding. Try two blunt blades side by side in your craft knife, and make only one
pass for the best results.
Assembly
Tailplanes, struts, undercarriage, in fact everything not already covered except an Aeroclub engine, come from the Eduard Nieuport 17.
The only complication in assembly is the seperate lower wing panels, as with the Sopwith 1½ Strutter elswhere on these pages the solution is to attach the top wing first. The vee struts will then make it much easier to align the lower wings.
The undercarriage vees in Eduards kit are too long and should be shortened by about 3mm, this applies even if building the type 17. The overwing Lewis mounting is modelled from Evergreen plastic rod and represents one of at least three different types seen on French Nieuports. Some British type 16's (RFC did not have the type 11) had a Foster mounting, and here too variation may be noted. My model does not have a gun mounted, I may get round to it some time.
Finish
The model is finished in what appears to have been a faily standard two tone scheme for camouflaged Nieuport 16's. There are differing interpretations as to exactly which colours were used but I have gone for chocolate and olive with light yellow (biege) under surfaces. Escadrille markings come from a Blue Rider Spad sheet and differ in detail from my reference, but I'm happy.
The white numerals are hand painted.
National markings are from the kit decals and are applied to both wings on the under sufaces only as seems to have been the norm at the time. The model did have roundels on the upper wing surfaces for about thirty seconds, but I lost my nerve. My colour ref was of the "serial unknown" variety, but the serial application on French aircraft was very characteristic so a bogus one was made up from the kit decals. I feel that a bogus serial is better than none in these circumstances. All rigging is from fuse wire as in rigging notes elsewhere.
Not an easy conversion, but an enjoyable one. Rumours of an Eduard Nieuport 11 have yet to firm up and I reckon it will be a couple of years at least before we see any plastic so, for now, this is the only game in town.
Home
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Pfalz E1:
Rigging:
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Bentley:
Culley's Camel:
Wings:
Triple Play:
Model T:
Gordon Bennett:
Farman:
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