Gorby's first and last foray into WWI aviation - Eduard 1/48 Roland C.II
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Ever since I've been modelling, there has been one unwritten rule – no WWI aircraft. When I was a nipper it was probably because WWI was obviously an inferior world war and not as good as the proper one – I did Top Trumps, I know these things. This time around it has been because of the joint horrors of rigging, and transmuting plastic into wood using only the power of paint.
I've grown up now (mostly) and it's finally time to put those demons to rest.
I'm not a stickler for accuracy, but the reason I usually add extra bits is that I don't like the finished model to look too featureless. No I'm not likely to add a head-up display and a couple of ejector seats (that's an idea), so please don't point out historical irregularities as I may be forced to spread malicious rumours about that hamster you were seen with last Tuesday. The main addition is the wooden prop (channelling my inner Bughunter); the scratch-built fishy anemometer; and the generator – with mini wooden prop.
I decided that I didn't want to slavishly follow the schemes from the box, so after a bit of research I found this aircraft. It's a very little known example that lasted only a couple of weeks before it met it's inevitable end - but not before shooting down four aircraft! That quickly becomes less impressive when you learn that one was an observation balloon (hard to miss); unfortunately two were from their own squadron and after the gunner shot off their own fin, they added themselves to their less than glorious tally. Both crew survived but weren't trusted with fire-arms let alone another plane for the remainder of the conflict. After the war they went on to form the rarest of beasts, a German comedy double-act. For such an interesting aircraft (it seems the crew chose every quirky option available) it's very poorly documented and represented in the modelling world. *
*History nazis please note: Every word of this is rubbish – it's not a representation of something that really existed, it's just a model. I like to think of it as a Luftstreitkrafte-19 build. 🙂
