Aircraft walkaround vol.13: Albatros D3

Subject: Albatros D3
Location: Deutches Museum, near Munich, Germany, 2012.

Comments: The Albatros D.III was a biplane fighter aircraft used by the Imperial German Army Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte) and the Austro-Hungarian Air Service (Luftfahrtruppen) during World War I. The D.III was flown by many top German aces, including Manfred von Richthofen, Ernst Udet, Erich Löwenhardt, Kurt Wolff, and Karl Emil Schäfer. It was the preeminent fighter during the period of German aerial dominance known as "Bloody April" 1917.

Work on the prototype D.III started in late July or early August 1916. The date of the maiden flight is unknown, but is believed to have occurred in late August or early September. Following on the successful Albatros D.I and D.II series, the D.III utilized the same semi-monocoque, plywood-skinned fuselage. At the request of the Idflieg (Inspectorate of Flying Troops), however, the D.III adopted a sesquiplane wing arrangement broadly similar to the French Nieuport 11. The upper wing was extended in span, while the lower wing was redesigned with reduced chord and a single main spar. "V" shaped interplane struts replaced the previous parallel struts. For this reason, British aircrews commonly referred to the D.III as the "V-strutter."

Military aircraft vol.50

Subject: Curtiss P40M Kittyhawk
Scale:1/48
Manufacturer: Hobbyboss

Comments: Injection molded kit with 4 light grey sprues and 1 clear parts sprue. Decals for 2 different aircraft, 1 british (no.112 Sqn, RAF) and 1 american (75th FS, 23rd FG, 13th AF, 1943).

This is the new line of easy assembly kits from Hobbyboss, but now in 1/48 scale. There are 32 grey plastic parts and 2 clear parts, with nice injection and no flash. Bellow you see some pictures of the sprues and the nice detail of the moldings.

The decals are in perfect register and Hobyboss make the best decals i have seen in a production kit.

I usually don´t mesuare the time i need to build a kit, but since this is an easy kit, i decided to check if it is so easy as said. Fit is good at the fuselage, but not so nice in the wing to fuselage junction. Some putty was needed to fill the gap here. I found no other problems.

Here are some details of the construction:

And here is the kit completed:

It took me 15hs and 25min to build, almost the time i need to build any other kit. The result looks nice to me, but if you want more detail, this is not your ideal kit.

Military aircraft vol.49

Subject: Northrop N9M Flying Wing
Scale: 1/72
Manufacturer: Sword
Construction: Out of the box. Painted with tamiya acrilics, decals from the kit.

Video of a restored N9M at Chino, California, USA

Experimental aircraft walkaround vol.1: Rockwell-Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm X31 Vector

Subject:  Rockwell-Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm X31 Vector
Location: Deutches Museum, Munich, Germany

Purpose: X-31 Enhanced Fighter Maneuverability program was designed to test fighter thrust vectoring technology. Thrust vectoring allows the X-31 to fly in a direction other than where the nose is pointing, resulting in significantly more maneuverability than most conventional fighters. An advanced flight control system provides controlled flight at high angles of attack where conventional aircraft would stall.