The Armée de l'Air arrives (at least some of it) at last

        During a part of my reorganization process (which is pretty much a continuous effort to squeeze more and more toys into a finite amount of space) I was confronted with the realization that I had more model aircraft in my "Spats and Such" collection that there was room available in the Heap of Embarassment*. A sober-minded inventory revealed that there were a dozen of so that could reasonably be passed along to Ebay but that still left me with several kits that had no home. I impose few rules on my hobby but one that I do try to honor is that everything must fit into the assigned space.

        While considering the unhappy thought that I might have to add these rare and wonderful aircraft to the Ebay pile I had an epiphany; I could build them and shift them from the guilt-laden "projects" section of The Vault to the "completed" section as minis that were ready to be used in a game. It also occurred to me that if I built the kits that were in the largest boxes it would free up more space. I didn't quite get that accomplished, but I did get four models in large(ish) boxes assembled and painted. Three of these belonged to the Armée de l'Air, an air force that I had rather badly neglected in my building program.

       So, with no further ado let's introduce them in chronological order:

The Dewoitine D-500 series was part of France's move away from biplane fighters to modern low-wing monoplanes. It incorporated some antique features such as fixed landing gear (just look at those lovely spats!) and an open cockpit, but it was definitely heading in the right direction. A good Wikipedia article can be found here.

 

this is the old Heller kit, despite its age it is a very good model

 

this kit required only the tiniest amount of filler on the bottom seam

a couple of finish nails buried in the fuselage ensure it stays attached to the magnetic stand

 

I do love the all bright aluminum finish

 

 

The Caudron C-714 went a step further, but also a step in the wrong direction. In the mid 1930's there were two faulty crazes that seemed to infect most of the world's air forces; the first was the "heavy-fighter" concept of multi-man multi-engine aircraft, the second was the "light-fighter" concept. The light-fighter idea was that, if you were willing to accept some performance compromises, it would be possible to built inexpensive fighter aircraft out of non-strategic materials and using lower powered engines. In France this gave birth to the Caudron-Renault C-714. The whole sordid story can be found in this Wikipedia article.

 

this kit is a Polish production of an old Heller kit

the fit and finish is simply terrible, I'm not sure if it was this bad when Heller released it

 

compared to the other aircraft in this group it is tiny

 

 

the French didn't use it in combat in 1940, 

only the Poles were brave enough to take this into combat 

even the fighter-hungry Finns refused to fly it

 

it did have very sleek lines

 

in many ways it resembles the Heinkel HE-100

Dewoitine D-520 was the logical outgrowth of the D-500 series. It did away with the fixed landing gear and open cockpit so loved by traditionalists and substituted much greater power and speed (much loved by the fighter pilots who were going to be asked to use these in combat!). It was a near match for the early Messerschmitt BF-109 series. As you may suspect, there is a Wikipedia article on this aircraft as well.

 

this is a HobbyBoss kit,

 I got it because it was cheap and was advertised as simple to assemble

 

well, it was cheap

 

the fuselage and wings are cast as two hefty chunks that "only" require being snapped together

 

unfortunately they are dimensionally incompatible and require being hammered together

 

it does capture the outline of the aircraft rather well

 

I had to make wheel-well covers from card

 as the parts provided only allow for the landing gear to be attached in the extended position

       I would love to pretend that this completes my French section but I seem to have lost control on the "Acquisitions" end of this project and have another nineteen models to go before the Armée de l'Air is complete!

    * As opposed to the Mountain of Shame (which consists of metal minis that I haven't gotten to) the Heap of Embarassment is the home of my unbuilt plastic toys.