Airco DH.5

PAINTING BY BRIAN KNIOGHT

This painting by Brian Knight is featured on the cover of "Windsock Datafile 50 Airco DH5" published by Albatros Productions Inc. A kit box top image for the Lone Start kit could not be found.

AMC DH.5 3-VIEW DRAWING

This 3-view drawing is reproduced here from the Harleyford publication Fighter Aircraft of World War 1. The DH.5 was a follow-on to the DH.2 pusher biplane. The design was an attempt to incorparate the features of a tractor biplane with a syncronized forward-firing machine gun and a staggered wing-set to provide the pilot with an unobstructed forward view. Howewer, good the forward view, the view to the rear was totally virtually!

THE MODEL TO BE BUILT

The model to be built is AMC DH.5 A.9165, flown by Lt. Henry Winslow Woollett, No. 24 Squadron RFC, claiming 4 victories on this aircraft in July 1917. He went on to claim a total of 35 victories during the war.

PHOTO OF THE MODEL TO BE BUILT

This photo is taken from "Windsock Datafile 50 AMC DH.5" by J. M. Bruce and produced by Albatros Productions Ltd. The DH.5 equipped the following RFC Western Front squadrons: 24, 32, 41, 64, and 68.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO No. 1

The first item to be addressed is the cockpit interior. The foot skids lead to the rudder bar which were included in the resin kit. Note that the front end needs to be sanded flush.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO No. 2

The instrument panel was supplied but the all the gauges were built up from round plastic stock and faced with instrument decals by several makers.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO No.3

The bottom wing is glued in place with much needed Perfect Plastic Putty. The tail unit (in two pieces) was glued. The one-piece horizontal component came up short on the cut-out of the fuselage. A 1/8-inch piece of the fuselage was cut waya to get the horizontal tail in place so as to clear the placement of the rudder.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO No.4

This photo shows the addition of the main landing gear built from brass tube and rod. Struts were carefully matched to both the kit's plastic struts and Windsock Datafile 50 drawings. The kit's resin axle was used.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO No.5

Before painting, I added the Vickers machine gun, Then, the built-up rotary engine was trial-fitted to accomodate the cowling. I had to add a thin plastic square to the outside firewall and glued the engine in place. When dry, I glued the cowling in place. Next, I used brass rod for the horizontal tail supports. Lastly, the tailskid was fashioned from brass tube and rod as a long piece to fit well into the solid-cast resin fuselage.

Painting of the fuselage is next as shown above. The fuselage, fin, wheel struts, and wheels are painted in my mix of "PC-10" consisting of equal halves of Vallejo 887 US Olive Drab and 983 Flat Earth. Then underside of the fuselage, lower wing, and horizontal tail are painted in Vallejo 976 Buff. The rudder stripes are painted in Vallejo 809 Royal Blue, Andrea XNAC01 White, and Vallejp 947 Dark Vermillion. The cowling was done in Andrea XNAC01 White. All painting required two coats.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO No.6

To complete the fuselage at this point, one overcoat of Vallejo Acrylic Satin Varnish was applied for decal adhesion. Fuselage decals came from three different sources in my stash of British decals. The rudder decal in two parts ('A' and '9165') was made in Word and printed on a laser printer. One more poly overcoat to seal the decals was applied. Kit decals were not supplied.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO No.7

My usual approach to top wing attachment is to install the fuselage struts first. The inital step is to determine the size of the brass tube and, in this case, I chose Albion Alloys MBT14 (1.4mm OD and 1.2mm ID) but before cutting them to length, I inserted brass rod into the four fuselage strut holes. I determined the length by using the front view drawing by I. R. Stair in Windsock Datafile 50. The side view does not correctly give the proper length because of the acute angle at which these struts are placed. After four struts were cut exactly alike, I placed the top wing into position to test the fit and the proper placement of the wing to it was not lopsided side-to-side or front-to-back. Then, I made the outside casing of the strut using the brass tube given above. Each strut's brass rod was bent slightly at the top to fit the wing.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO No.8

This photo shows the completed wing/fuselage rigging using .006 MFT. Wing struts are painted in Vallejo 856 Ochre Brown. Attached to the tail components are Eduard control horns yet to be rigged. In anticipation of the airleron rigging, I applied one coat of my PC.10 mix. A second coat will be applied, polyurethaned, and then have top wing cockades applied before work on the aileron rigging.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO No.9

Besides another view of the wing rigging, this photo explains the dangling white line. It is a length of solder primed white to be painted in copper to represent the fuel line from the top wing tank to the fuselage tank behind the cockpit which is out of view here.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO No.10

This finished view highlights the windscreen, rear circular gunsight, and front post gunsight in profile. The underside of the port lower wing shows the aieleron wiring. Also of note is the propeller-driven fuel pump attached to the left forward landing gear strut.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO No.11

This view shows the Petot tubes attached to the upper right wing strut. Also note the conical nose piece of the propeller. Several of the tail unit control wires are visible existing the fuselage.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO No.12

This photo shows a bit more of the tail unit rigging and the wire support for the fin. The wing rigging shows up quite well in this photo. If not mentioned previously, the tail skid was made from flattened brass tube and rod. All control horns are from Eduard 1:48 scale PE sheet and painted black.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO No.13

Wing roundel decals are from Eduard's decal sheet for the 'Comic' Sopwith F.1 Camel.

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO No.14

CONSTRUCTION PHOTO No.15

FRENCH WW1 AIRCRAFT INDEX	BACK TO WW1 AIRCRAFT INDEX
NAVIGATE TO OTHER PAGES	HISTORICAL MINIATURES HOME
COPYRIGHT	TOP OF PAGE