Modelart by Marco - Germany 1/72nd Savoia Pomilio SPIII By Pedro Nuno Soares

History

The two seater Savoia-Pomilio (from its designers, engineers Ottorino Pomilio and Umberto Savoja) SPIII reconnaissance aircraft began its operational career with Italian units in the spring of 1917, being the result of an effort to provide the much similar SP II with increased manoeuvrability (through a shorter wingspan) what also resulted in an increase of speed, though this last effect may well be credited, to a large extent, to the use of a more powerful version of the Fiat A12, six cylinder in-line engine used as the airplane's powerplant, that was initially rated at 240 hp, and that would in the course of 1917 be modified to produce 300 hp as the A12 bis.

The aircraft designed much in the same way as the Farman F5 (the Italian built version of the Maurice Farman MF 11, equipped with a FIAT engine) that its forerunner SPII was meant to replace, was equipped with a FIAT-Revelli machine gun and was produced in 300 units, both by SIA - Società Italiana Aviazione, (the aeronautical offshot of FIAT - Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) and SIT - Società Italiana Transaerea, in Turin, and would soldier on to the end of the war, some examples being still in use as late as 1919.

The Kit

Upon opening the sturdy cardboard flip-top box a nice surprise is waiting for you, since not only you'll find a bag containing the some 70 resin parts that make up the kit, and 3 pages of hand drawn instructions, but also two frameable printed reproductions: a painting depicting an in flight view of one of the options the kit provides decals for, by well know aviation artist Robert Karr and a profile of the other aircraft catered for in the decal sheet, by the equally well know aviation illustrator and editor of IM Bob Pearson.

Turning one's attention to what's inside the bag that holds the kit parts, it will be noticed that most of those, with the exception of the flying surfaces and a couple items more that come as individual castings, are group cast and as such are delivered in a couple of resin waffles what will generate quite a good deal of part cleaning ( not always an easy task due to the size and nature of the detail parts). Also, on a number of parts such as the undercarriage skids or the nice radiators, I found traces of asymmetrical casting what results in parts with misaligned halves. This can be dealt with by sanding and filling but cleaning the "ridge" on the radiators will have very adverse effects on the nice moulded in detail, that will have to be reconstructed.

The attention to detail that the master maker has put into his work is readily apparent though and the nice replica of FIAT A12 engine is an example of this, as are the other sundry details like the instrument panel, or the moulded in structure on the sidewalls of the nacelle.

The SPIII had both wings of equal span and chord, so it's only natural that both wings should be based upon the same master. This, however, will mean that any fault on the masters will be replicated two times, hence the annoying "scars" that are present on the underside of both wings, one running chordwise, and the other spanwise from each inner tip of the aileron hinges. These will be difficult to deal with but since the underside of the wings presents a somewhat "bumpy" surface the builder will probably choose to sand off all the undersurface detail (including all traces of the said scars) and reinstate it at a later stage.

This can be perfectly accomplished because the uncommon type of resin used to cast the parts is quite flexible and easily withstands the stress imparted by continuous spanwise sanding with wet and dry paper.

Dimensionally the kit parts are well within acceptable tolerances, if you benchmark it against the most recent plans published in Windsock, Vol 19, No.3. I found the wings to be about 1mm too long spanwise, while the booms showed the same discrepancy in length.

The nacelle though is some 2 mm longer with report to the plans, but I'm sure this will not detract from the accurate look, once the model is finished.

The need to ensure usable parts, taking into consideration the limitations of the medium used (resin) has also dictated some compromises in terms of scale for a few of the parts, and this is only slightly apparent in the sectional width of the booms. Again, I'm sure that once the model finished this will not be noticeable and top marks go to Marco for providing the booms, probably one of the model's most troublesome areas, as fully pre-assembled parts.

The kit provides ALPS generated decals for 2 aircraft, serials 4530 and 4531, with a similar general finish: CDL flying surfaces and rudder with dark stained wood nacelle and light grey metal panels.

As usual in Italian WW1 aircraft, the tips of the underside of the wings were painted in the national colours (red on one side and green on the other). Marco provides solid colour decals for this, but I feel a better finish will result from painting the corresponding areas in the pertinent colours.

Conclusion

As a way of conclusion, I would not recommend this kit as an introduction to WW1 modeling, due not only to the extra work involved in correcting the blemishes brought about by the casting system used by the manufacturer and also (and mainly) due to the very extensive and complicated rigging system that will have to be reproduced into the model.

This notwithstanding, if you're into WW1 modeling and have a few multi wing models to your credit, and are familiar with the idiosyncrasies of resin kits, I see no reason why you shouldn't have a nice SPIII model in your display shelf . It's not shake and bake, but then again is there any WW1 model that fits that description?

My thanks to Modelart for the review kit.

References

Windsock Intrenational Vol 19. nos.3 and 4
Reconnaissance & Bomber aircraft of the 1914-1918 War, Harleyford, 1962