Scratchbuilding the Farman 1020 in 1/72 scale; or how to deliver
a super-sized empanada in French style
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Introduction
In 1933 an experimental plane took to the air that reputedly contributed
to raise French fashion design to even higher standards.
The apocryphal story goes that instead of aeronautic engineers the Farman
company hired French fashion designers. After much discussion and sounds
of busy scissors, the patterns for a plane emerged, although is some times
argued that what was finally used were the sketches for a night gaunt.
The plane made use of an adapted Farman series 400 fuselage to which
a semi-circular wing of large area was attached. One can only image the
discussion between the control surfaces about which will have err…control.
Nevertheless the plane flew, and flew well, in-spite of the pilot reputedly
having to deal with an abundance of levers protruding from every conceivable
corner of the cockpit.
The Model:
This is, like most of my models, a rather simple rendition. You have
the in-process images to get an idea, so I won’t have to bore you
with meticulously useless descriptions. Besides using the normal modeling
paraphernalia, this time I chopped a few cylinders from an Engine &
Things product to complete the engine. Prop is carved from a popsicle
wood stick and the boss is a photo-etched part.
This model gave me a (self-inflicted) head ache with the custom-made
decals. Advise: don’t inspect your model at high hours of the night
and think that looks good! Turn on the lights!
For those of us with a bias toward the unusual, this is one that ranks
high in the list; simple enough to avoid much hair-tearing and good looking
enough to spark the construction flame.
Haute -flying- couture!
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