Bent Throttles

Journal of the Racing and Record Aircraft Special Interest Group
of IPMS-UK
No. 22, January 2002

Reviewed by Jim Schubert

The subjects covered in depth in this issue are the Sopwith Tabloid and the Weddell-Williams racers. The winner of the 1914 Schneider Trophy event is well covered with build articles by Neil Crawford in 1:72 scale and by, SIG Master, Anders Bruun in 1:48 scale along with Ander's great 1:48 drawings. Brad Hagen gives us a brief history of the Weddell-Williams planes, Clint Sims guides us through building Jimmy Haizlip's black and white #92 racer from the Williams Brothers 1:32 scale kit and Anders gives us a review of the fine new Hirsch/Schultz book Weddell-Williams Air Service, which I bought after flipping through aviation artist John Amendola's copy last month. John, incidentally, did the box top painting of the three Weddell-Williams racers in their 1932 color schemes for the William Brothers kit. He also did the box tops for most of the rest of their kits.

Ferdinand CW Kassmann's article on German Schneider racer designs was of especial interest to me as I am quite taken with Schneider planes and recently found a photo of the Dornier 1928 Schneider Projekt in Das Buch Der Deutschen Luftfahrttechnik of 1970 by Bruno Lange. Ferdinand CW Kassmann's article reveals that Claudius Dornier's Societa di Costruzioni Meccaniche de Pisa submitted designs to the Italian Air Ministry for Schneider contenders in 1923, '28 and '31. Ernst Heinkel's firm also penned potential Schneider racers in 1928 and '29. None of these German designs were built. The three Dornier designs were quite innovative; the two Heinkel offerings were, however, more in the mainstream of contemporary Schneider design thinking. Three-view general arrangement drawings of all five German designs are included in the article.

Anders reviews the new Alitricolori decal sheet No. 72101 "Lo Sparviero da Corsa" for two of the S.M.79 Istris-Damascus-Paris racers; the winner I-11 and the sixth place finisher I-6 along with I-BRUN, which was flown from Rome to Rio de Janeiro via Dakar by Bruno Mussolini in January 1938. These are the striking red, white and green racers with the three green mice insignia. If you are computer savvy (I'm not) you could scan these, enlarge them to 1:48 scale and embark upon a conversion of the new Classic Air Frames S.M.79 or you could scratchbuild a conversion out-of-the-box of the awful OLD Airfix kit to use the decals as printed. We need a good state-of-the-art 1:72 scale kit of the "Sparrow". ARE YOU CZECH KIT MAKERS LISTENING?

This issue also includes the following:

Warbird Aero Press Decals - review
Galloping on Wings - book review
Scale Aviation "Unlimited Maces" - magazine article review
"Kings of Speed" Photo CD - review
plus general SIG news, New Products, corrections and additions, etc.

There's also some bad news in this issue sports fans; the membership fee for this SIG has gone up! Effective immediately, a year's membership, including five issues of Bent Throttles, will cost you:

15 pounds sterling, 22 dollars US, 25 Euros, 3000 Yen or 220 Swedish Kroner

payable ONLY in cash. Mail the cash, with your name, postal and e-mail addresses to: Anders Bruun, Bradstupsvagen 21, SE-129 39 Hagersten, Sweden. The increase is due to rises in international and intra European postal rates.