Finally something in plastic: the ancient 1:28 scale Revell SPAD XIII in the markings of 2nd Lt Frank Luke of the 27th Aero Squadron of the US Army Air Service, based at Saints in August 1918.
I have made no effort to make the model correct, but have basically followed the instructions, interpreting the colours “tan”, “dark earth”, ”olive drab” and “gray” as Humbrol 9, 29, 116, and 40, respectively, with 49 as matt laquer. The fit wasn’t awful, but some amount of putty has been necessary. I added clear plastic panes to the windshield, which was just empty frames otherwise. For some reason the struts have had a tendency to mysteriously disappear, so I’ve had to reconstruct a few of them from scratch. I decided my usual fishing line was too thin to use as bracing wire at this scale, and didn’t want to use sewing thread, so I decided piano wire would be best. Approximately 2 m of 0.5 mm wire turned out to be needed. Somewhat to my surprise the decals were good and hadn’t even yellowed. I did my best to cut away clear decal film and think I mostly succeeded in avoiding silvering.
