Roden 1/72 Sopwith Camel F.1 Two-Seat Trainer By Chris Bucholtz

History

The Sopwith Camel was a lethal fighter in every respect. It took a major toll against the enemy, but it also proved fatal to many neophyte pilots who were not used to the rotary engine, the razor’s-edge control and the narrow landing gear. In the first six months of 1917, over 100 training accidents befell the Camel and 30 student pilots were killed. To stop this carnage, the most obvious solution was a two-seat variant allowing an experienced instructor to ease new pilots through their first flights in the Camel.

Making a two-seater of the already compact Camel was not as hard as it might have seemed. The armament was removed, and fuel capacity was reduced to about 20 minutes’ worth, since training flights were not expected to be very long. The forward cockpit was placed several inches forward of the original cockpit’s location, and the rear cockpit was squeezed in behind it, leaving very little leg room. The result of this was that the Camel’s center of gravity was maintained, and students received a realistic orientation of what their single-seat Camels would feel like later.

The dual-control trainers lasted in service through the end of the war, then were discarded as quickly as the Camels themselves. During its year of service, the two-seat Camel undoubtedly saved dozens of young pilots, keeping them alive at least until they reached the Western Front.

The Kit

Roden’s kit is based on its Camel series, already acknowledged as the best 1:72 Camels available. The kit varies from its predecessors by including two seats and a shell for the upper fuselage with two opening and a new upper wing with larger openings for improver visibility for the pilot in the front seat. For those unfamiliar with the Roden Camel series, I’ll give a little rundown on what you get.

Starting at the nose, the engine is a beautiful rendition of the Clerget 9J, complete down to its spark plugs. The landing gear’s split-axle arrangement is handled well and the wheels are detailed and utterly lacking the ejection pin marks endemic to this part of most kit’s undercarriage. The fuselage interior halves are festooned with stringers and formers, and two seats and a pair of control sticks attach to a frame that goes at the bottom of the fuselage, providing instant interior detail. Further crowding the cockpit are two rudder bars and a pair of throttles.

The exterior of the fuselage is nicely detailed, with restrained (meaning, in this scale, nearly unperceptable) fabric effect. That same subtlety is shared by the wings and horizontal tail and separate vertical fin. The struts are provided and although they, like several other parts in the kit, have a bit of flash, they are a useful inclusion, especially the strut with the wind generator, although the prop on the generator is unconvincing and could be replaced with a bit of brass sheet twisted appropriately.

Another handy inclusion is the rigging diagram on page 7 of the instructions. Be aware that two sets of wires running from the struts upper inside surface to the lower area at the wing root are doubled up. Full rigging instructions for the tail and aileron controls are also included for those who wish to make their model utterly impossible to pick up once completed!

The markings for this kit provide a host of options. None are particularly garish, but I’m betting we’ll see the most of is Option 4, a plane cryptically described as “Johnaton, Presented by the Paramount Chief and Basuto Nation,” stationed at Wye in 19 The 17 and 1918 and flying with No. 42 Training Squadron. This plane features a white rear fuselage, an aluminum forward fuselage and natural wood around the cockpit, not to mention the clear doped linen lower wing under a matt green upper wing surface. Second on the list of visually-interesting subjects is Option 7, a trainer serving at the South-Eastern Area Flying Instructors School at Shoreham in 1918, which boasts red stripes around its cowling. The other five schemes allow you to build aircraft serving at Chattis Hill, Cranwell, Wye, South Carlton and a Naval Flying School example from Eastbourne.

Conclusion

Roden continues its successful run of Camels with this variant. The slightly different look of this Camel, combined with a lack of armament and those photoetched machine gun barrels, make this a great kit for modelers looking to step up to a more complicated biplane kit. Thanks to Roden for our review sample.