1/48 Roden & Glencoe Nieuport 28

Gallery Article by Mike Muth on Feb 7 2018

 

      

"If it looks right, it will fly right." So goes the famous saying implying a beautiful looking airplane will fly beautifully (Think Spitfire). The Nieuport 28 is generally considered by World War I enthusiasts to be one of the more elegant looking planes of the era. Unfortunately, due to construction difficulties it didn't always fly that way. The Nieuport company had established itself by using rotary engines for its sesquiplane designs. The rotary engine had its limitations and the Nieuport 28 was the last Nieuport design to use the rotating engine. The Nieuport 28 also differed from previous Nieuport designs in not being a "V-strutter" with a sesquiplane lower wing. The Nieuport 28 had two parallel struts attached to the more tradition full lower wing. It was sleek looking and its elliptical wings were visual forerunners of the Spitfire's. France decided to cancel its order for the Nieuport 28 shortly after it was ordered into production. The French preferred the new SPAD 13 and never used the Nieuport 28, but the Americans did. No home grown fighter designs were front line worthy for the fledgling American Air Service. So the U.S. purchased airplanes designed and built by its allies. The U.S. purchased S.E.5a and Sopwith airplanes (among others) from Great Britain and SPAD and Nieuport airplanes from France. Many U.S. aces scored their first victories flying the Nieuport 28 and some became aces in it before switching over to SPAD XIIIs.

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The first patrol flown by the Americans was on March 6, 1918. Major Raoul Lufbery led a flight of 2 unarmed Nieuport 28s from the 94th Aero Squadron over the lines. Machine guns arrived by March 28 but only enough to the arm the airplanes with one gun instead of the standard 2. Eventually enough machine guns were received and the standard armament for the Nieuport 28s was fulfilled. The problem with the beautiful looking fighter was that its top wing had a tendency to shed its fabric covering. Both Eddie Rickenbacker and Jim Meissner experienced having the upper wing shed its fabric while combat flying. They were fortunately able to nurse the planes home and land safely. This happened twice to Meissner. It was later discovered that a poor quality glue had been used in the manufacturing process. Once this was rectified, no more problems existed, but the reputation of the Nieuport for shedding its wings was set.

The French had adopted a standardized camouflage pattern by this time in the war. The fuselage and upper wing surfaces were painted in a 5 color pattern of black, chestnut brown, light green, dark green and beige. The under surfaces of the wings, stabilizer and fuselage was light yellow. The U.S. roundel (red, blue and white) was painted on the upper wing and on the underside of both wings. The 94th Aero Squadron was distinguished with the now famous "hat in the ring" emblem. Liberty Loan posters were attached to the upper and lower wings on some of the 94th's Nieuports. The 95th Aero Squadron marked its Nieuports with a bucking mule insignia. Its flights used different designs on the cowl, with A flight using a red and white diamond pattern, B flight using a red and chrome yellow spiral and C flight using a series of blue U shaped concentric half circles on a white cowl. 

In 1/48 scale there is not a lot to choose from if you want to build a Nieuport 28. Aurora put out a 28 as part of its early kits in 1957. There was an update by K&B in 1972. It is probably a little bit out of scale for 1/48 and has the dreaded raised markings on it. It was later re-boxed by Glencoe and the one I built had the raised markings removed. Roden has the other main entry. Blue Max also has a nice, limited run version. I decided to build the Glencoe and Roden kits at the same time to see which I liked better. The Glencoe kit is Rickenbacker's plane, White 12, with the white cowl and Liberty Loan posters on the wings from the 94th Squadron. The Roden kit has the red and white diamond cowling of A flight's Lt. Edward P. Curtis from the 95th Squadron. 

The Glencoe kit is slightly larger than the Roden. I tried to take photos either side by side or on top of each other showing the major differences. The Glencoe kit is in dark gray while the Roden kit is light gray. While the Glencoe cockpit is sparse, (when compared to Roden's), you really can't see much of anything once the fuselage is closed up and the top wing set in place. So, I wouldn't spend too much time on all that super detailing some people love to do in the cockpit. I used the Liberty Loan poster and the white #10s supplied with the Roden kit on the Glencoe model. Just about all of the rest of the decals came from the Red Gecko sheet "Nieuport 28s of the USAS 1st Pursuit Group." Some of the Nieuports had a light French Blue for the cockade and some had a darker Insignia Blue. Red Gecko supplies both and I used the darker one on Curtis's Black 4.

For Rickenbacker's Nieuport I used the following 5 Model Master colors to represent the French camo scheme: Italian Olive Green, RAF Dark Green, Middlestone, French Chestnut, and Flat Black. For "ecru"(an elusive color) I chose Humbrol Satin Oak. The tires were done in Model Master Neutral Gray. For Curtis's Nieuport I used Tamiya: Olive Drab XF62, Cockpit Green XF 71, Desert Yellow XF 59, NATO Brown XF 68 and Flat Black. For the rudders on both airplanes, I painted the white with Model Master Insignia White, the light blue with MM Intermediate Blue and the red with Tamiya Red.

As far as the difficulty in building the 2 is concerned, the Glencoe kit is easier, although less accurate in terms of shape. The Roden kit is somewhat fiddly, especially when connecting the cowling/firewall assembly to the fuselage. The Glencoe kit is soft on some of its details, especially the machine guns. At the time the photo of Rickenbacker's Nieuport was taken, it only had one machine gun. I substituted one from the spares box. In assembling both kits I made sure the cabane struts were attached before painting. The location indentations on the Glencoe kit work fine; on the Roden kit they need some added depth. The Liberty Loan stickers went on without a hitch as did all of the other decals with the exception of the red diamonds on Curtis's cowl. The decal comes in one piece and I defy anyone to attach it that way. The sizing of the diamonds to fit the Roden cowl is pretty good. I ended up cutting the decal into 3 pieces and applied them one at a time, with a lot of time in between them to allow each section to set.

I don't usually build 2 kits of the same airplane simultaneously. It was fun, but I think I'm done with double builds and the Nieuport 28 for awhile. If you are only going to build one Nieuport 28 I would suggest the Roden kit since it is more accurate. If you want a quicker/easier build, go with the Glencoe if you can find it.

Mike Muth

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Photos and text © by Mike Muth