Toko Hansa Brandenburg D.1
Designed by a madman and flown by raving lunatics, I think that pretty much sums up "the flying coffin".
These Toko kits are the greatest thing since Revell's line up of 1/72 WW1 kits from the sixties. The only problem I had with this was the struts, not surprisingly. The kit ones didn't fit at all so I replaced them with Contrail (now available from Aeroclub) extruded strut stock. There are no locating holes in the wings for the struts so I just scraped away a tiny bit of paint and glued the struts right to the wing surface. Worked fine but some sort of jig is a neccesity.
The prop is carved from wood with a photo etched prop boss, there's a bit of extra detail in the cockpit and the tail struts are from heat stretched Contrail strut stock. The undercarriage rigging, rudder control cables and aileron actuating rods are stretched sprue. Radiator hoses are brass rod. Decals are from the kit except the personal marking on the fuselage which is from an Americal/Gryphon Austro-Hungarian sheet.
I experimented with hand painting the machined 'sworls' on the cowling with bright silver over a base of flat aluminum. Worked quite well but it doesn't show up in the photos so you'll just have to take my word for it.
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