This is last year's 'Christmas project'---started the day after, I think---which I worked on off-and-on all year, then decided I'd do a 'press' to finish before the New Year. This is Roden's venerable 1/32 SE5a 'Wolseley Viper' release, done up with bits of the Part-from-Poland photoetch set, and finished in the kit-supplied markings of the Austin-built a/c of Capt. Reed Landis, CO of the USAAS 25th Aero Squadron, based at Toul in France in November 1918.
A 'trivia' note for sports fans---Capt. Landis was the only son of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, US federal judge and the first Commissioner of American Baseball from 1920 until his death in 1944. Capt. Landis himself---who later served as a Colonel in the USAAC during WW2---was a 12-victory ace, having served with No. 40 Sq. in the RAF before being transferred to 25th Aero in August 1918. Awarded the DSC and the DFC for his service in the Great War, he passed away in 1975.
I included the Cooper bombs and rack because they were in the kit, though I doubt that they were actually fitted to the 25th's a/c. Colors are 'by-eye' mixes of Tamiya acrylic paints, main rigging is EZ-Line and sections of polyimide tubing for the turnbuckle attachments, with control cables from Plastruct .010 rod. All in all a pretty trouble-free build, with the only minor difficulties being the kit decals and the fit of some of the aftermarket photo-etch parts. The decals were 'bagged' in zip-lock when the kit was acquired...which usually protects them...but wanted to crumble something awful before being coated with MicroScale decal-film, which seemed to mostly solve the problem. The photo-etch---despite having ostensibly been made for the kit---had some fit issues here and there, which I have found to be a fairly common challenge when using Part's stuff in the past. In fact I decided not to use a fair number of the p/e parts since Roden's original moldings were quite nicely-detailed.
Hope you enjoy the photos...and Happy New Year to all!
