Looking over the basic layout of the Snipe, it almost seems to be an attempt at a hybrid of the best attributes of the Camel and the SPAD, aiming for the rotary engine-powered, nimble center-of-gravity aerobatic performance of the former and the rugged durability of the latter. Late-war design trends on both sides of the conflict are also evident in its stubby, conical fuselage, a feature notably shared with other designs such as the Morane-Saulnier AI and the Siemens-Schuckert D.III that was most likely an attempt to counteract the tail-heaviness for which aircraft of the era were notorious. However, any resemblance with those technically advanced French and German designs ended there; fundamentally speaking, the Snipe was a much more conservative – even mundane - design. In a sense, it was the penultimate 'classic' WWI construction canvas/wood/wire 'stringbag' fighter – the last of the line destined to close this chapter in military aircraft design, opening the way for the more advanced monocoque-framed and metal-skinned fighters of the future.
The aircraft I chose to portray with this Blue Max kit is perhaps the most famous Snipe of them all, 'E8102', which was piloted by Canadian Major WG Barker in one of the most lopsided – and miraculous - aerial combats of all time. On October 27, 1918, Major Barker found himself alone in a fight to the death with no less than 15 Fokker DVIIs over German lines. Wounded in both legs and an arm, Major Barker - in between fainting spells from pain and blood loss and narrow pull-outs from nearly fatal out of control 'death' spins - managed not only to down four of his foes in flames but to nurse his crippled aircraft back to friendly lines and survive, a feat of airmanship, courage and sheer fight-or-flight adrenaline rushes that deservedly earned him the Victoria Cross.
The kit is another of Chris Gannon's well thought-out and executed creations in the 1/48 Blue Max line. The wings of the kit feature the very tastefully done rib-taping the series is well-known for, and on an even happier note, it would appear that Blue Max has taken care of its infamous 'trailing edge wing ripple' mold removal flaw, which is indeed happy news for all of us who have had to sweat that problem out in the past with otherwise excellent quality kits (the example of the Bristol Fighter springs immediately to mind). Dimensions of the kit measure out accurately against Windsock Datafile 46's 1/48 plans (to paraphrase the instruction sheet, it would behoove you to "avail yourself" of this invaluable reference – you'll need it to build the relatively instruction-free kit), and important features of the aircraft all seem to be in the right positions and in scale checked out against both plans and photos. One notably lacking but quite salient feature (on the actual aircraft) is the main fabric seam running along the fuselage and roughly parallel with the trailing end of the plywood cockpit section, but this is easily scratch-rendered with a little patient and careful panel-scribing and, if you're gung ho enough, poncet-wheeling and crosshatch scratching for eyelets and lacing. In retrospect, I could have used some of that dry-transfer stitching material I've heard so much about on the WWI modeling BBSs and saved myself the hassle. Well, live and learn, right?
As with all simple-injection items, this kit could almost be deemed a 'virtual' vac-form, as the amount of dry-fitting, grind'n'bumping and pure BST (blood, sweat and tears) factor required to make everything go together properly is more akin to the labor required of the vacuum kit genre than that of injection plastic of the Tamiya/Hasegawa variety. Runner attachment points are extremely thick, sometimes carrying over onto the actual piece (requiring time-consuming 'cosmetic surgery' to correct), and there were numerous injector pin marks which had to be dealt with, in my case mostly with CA gap filling and precise rubber/silicate disc grinding.
Starting with the cockpit, I found that Blue Max's white metal took to my rubberized BSA, Inc. CA quite well. I used gray artists' (OK, sculptor's) modeling clay on top of a length of flat wood planking as a seat-of-the-pants construction jig to hold the cockpit frame in place while I tacked it all together and fitted it to the plastic fuselage flooring, making prompt and liberal use of CA accelerator spray throughout the process. With the pilot's seat, stick and rudder pedals now firmly in place, I gave it a few schpritzes with metal primer and Gunze Mr. Base White. After this had dried, I painted the stringers and cockpit frame with Model Master Leather (which dried matte), the 'plywood' floor with Model Master 'sand', colored pencil woodgraining and clear orange overspray wood simulation technique and did the 'wicker' pilot's seat with a dark brown which I then hand-highlighted (as opposed to drybrushing, that is) with a yellowish 'straw' color I mixed from various Humbrol yellow and khaki/buff shades and then overpainted with thinned Tamiya Clear Yellow. The cockpit fabric was done, according to instruction, in a 'rich honey tone' I created with Gunze Sail Color oversprayed, again, with Tamiya Clear Orange. Seatbelts, throttle and tailskid control wheel are from Tom's Modelworks WWI British Aircraft Interior set.
The last major headache of the kit was seating the white metal rotary engine properly and covering it with the white metal cowling while making sure that both of these pieces fit snugly with the plastic fuselage. All of this made for more happy hours of grind'n'dry-fit before everything went together satisfactorily. Again, these operations are not covered at all on the instruction sheet. You have to intuit/eyeball it all, praying to the Muse of Modeling and Ray Rimell for guidance. In the meantime, don''t even THINK about touching that bottle of CA before you've dry-fitted and looked at the joint from every possible angle, all the while comparing what you see with photos and plans in the Datafile.
After these giddily breathtaking romps through Modeling Adventureland, the rest of the construction was pretty straightforward, and should give no problem to modelers with a couple of simple injection kits under their belts. Proper wing dihedral angle is not provided for in the basic structure of the kit, so you have to crunch the engineering on your own. In my case, I opted to build a jig – again on a short length of flat wood paneling – by placing two pegs of 5mm square plastic rod on their sides at a distance such as that, by placing the fuselage exactly in between them and securing same to the plank with double-sided tape, the glue-curing wings would be propped up at the correct angle. I was able to determine this distance by placing a ruler along the bottom wing edge of the forward view in the Datafile schematic drawings. The process was repeated for the upper wing/center section construction. Again, seeing is believing – or in this case, understanding – and these steps in the construction will also become evident with the kit spread out before you.
The elevator and horizontal stabilizer section required some minor (and very careful) fuselage filing to achieve true level. On that note, in the better interests of your sanity, I would suggest that you refrain from attempting to achieve any kind of geometrical perfection vis-a-vis lining fuselage, wings and tail section up perfectly. Given the imperfections inherently involved in simple injection kit construction, you will be a much happier camper just eyeballing all the alignment and tweaking by hand where needed, perhaps with a little help from an extra splash of plastic solvent in a joint here and there. On this kit, I decided to scratch build the rudder connecting rod and tailskid assembly working from Snipe photos and schematics in the Datafile. It wasn't a particular daunting task, requiring only that I remove about 3mm from the end of the fuselage, block that with 1mm plastic planking on top and bottom and then taper that to match (or, more technically speaking, to continue) the curve of the fuselage with a little sanding. A few strips of Evergreen in the right spots and a section of 1mm brass rod to run up through the assembly and into the rudder and I was in business.
I tackled the painting in usual WW1 kit fashion by doing the completed fuselage/tail section/landing gear and lower wings as a kind of 'monoplane' unit, with the upper wing handled separately. Both sections were primed with Gunze Mr. Base White (lacquer) and finished with Model Master acrylics.
Once the upper wing was on securely, I opted to 'free end' the rigging in a process where the rods went through .5mm diameter holes drilled through the lower wings in the approximate direction of a shallow 'receiving hole' (actually, 'dimple' would be a better name for it) in the lower surface of the upper wings at the appropriate connection points. Once rigging length was determined, the rod was pulled back out and cut a fraction of a millimeter shorter, then given a droplet of viscous CA on the hole end and run back through with the 'dimple' end left unglued. The logic behind this is that rod glued at both ends cut exactly to length will inevitably bend and warp under even the slightest change in upper/lower wing relative alignment (a sad phenomenon I would suspect many Fairey Swordfish 'with the works' builders have experienced this spring), but a rod with one end free will have 'give', and the resiliency of the brass and absence of gravity effects on such small sections of rod can be left to take care of keeping the rods straight and true. This may raise many a modeler's eyebrow, but trust me, it works.