Airfix 1/72 Sopwith Camel 2F1

AIRFIX 1:72 SOPWITH CAMEL 2F1

Reviewer: Tim Beales (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 3 September 2002

Sopwith Camel 2f1 by AIRFIX in 1/72 scale

The Aircraft

Whole tomes have been written about the Sopwith Camel, so to be brief, it was the most successful fighter produced by any of the combatant nations of World War One, with pilots flying this aircraft shooting down the best part of 3,000 enemy aircraft. It supposedly had a vicious torque arising from the positioning of the internal components, and while this made it a great dogfighter, it also meant that the Camel killed a surprisingly large number of its pilots on take off and landing.

The Camel was first flown in late 1916, and was made in the F1 variant (two forward-firing Vickers machine guns) and the 2F1 version that had one .303 forward Vickers machine gun and one Lewis machine gun on the upper wing. Surprisingly for Airfix, no information is provided in the instruction sheet in this kit. However, the Airfix web page does provide some information stating that the Airfix model is a naval version of the 2F1 from 1918, when the Royal Navy used the Camel an escort fighter-bomber (carrying an additional two Cooper bombs). The Airfix model was flown by Stuart Culley who attacked one of the Zeppelins that had been routinely used by the Kaiser's navy for reconnaissance, relying on their altitude to escape any anti-aircraft fire and British fighters. As a means of getting at the Zeppelins, the RFC used Camels that were catapulted from a "lighter", which was a small raft towed behind a ship. Stuart Culley was the first pilot to successfully take off from a lighter, and on 10 August 1918 in a very dangerous manoeuvre, he shot down Zeppelin L53 from below while at the very limit of the aircraft's ceiling. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order medal for his effort.

Kit Parts

The kit is a Series 0 model contained in a tiny box, and will provide you with one Airfix Flying Hour. The camel is part of the recently reissued "Fighter Classics" series of WW1 Airfix models that also contains the Sopwith Pup and Bristol Fighter. There are 26 kit parts moulded in light grey plastic with practically no flash, which is amazing given that the basis of this mould must be the best part of 50 years old. The only duff points from first inspection are the ever present round visible ejector pin marks on the two wings, and slightly worse ones on the tail unit. These will need addressing before construction can begin.

Kit instructions are in the form of a single sub-A4 size square sheet, with the entire front of the sheet wasted by providing basic sentences in eight point type face telling you the obvious on model construction in 12 European languages. The back of the sheet shows the construction steps broken down into four sections.

Construction of the kit

The two fuselage halves cement together, with the pilot figure sitting on two pins protruding from each fuselage half that meet when the two pieces are glued together. No colour instructions are given for the inside. Many years ago, I saw a replica of the Camel and recall that it was a sandy brown colour inside, so not having anything else to go on, I painted mine in Humbrol 83, which to my eye is a close match to the colour I remember. The pilot figure was painted in khaki (H26) for his flying suit with black boots (H33), flesh face (H61), and chocolate gloves and helmet (H99) with silver goggles (H11). The pilot seems very small to me, and I am not sure if he would have been all of 4 foot tall in real life. Perhaps WW1 pilots were like Jockeys and were small, or maybe Ronnie Corbett or Mickey Rooney were the models for the Airfix pilot. Either way, next to the pilots from a 1/72 Airfix Spitfire, the Camel looks like it's being flown by an 11-year old kid.

I painted the front inside of the engine cowling in a dark gunmetal paint (H53), as there is an opening in the front for a machine gun and as one could potentially see through the model, I wanted this to be as opaque from the outside as possible. The Vickers machine gun is best left off until the end, as it will break off during subsequent manipulation during construction. Fortunately once assembled, one cannot see very much into the cockpit, and any super detail would be wasted. However, modellers not wishing to use the pilot figure will want to add a joystick and control panel, and the silicon chip engineers out there may want to add even more intricate cockpit detail.

The fuselage mates onto the lower wing, and the tailplane is formed by a single unit held in place by the tail fin, which is also a single piece. It is advised to check all is square while the glue is drying at this stage. The next part is assembly of the engine, which comprises of a single cowling unit with a feed through pin to locate onto the propeller. The engine sub-assembly then attaches directly onto the front of the fuselage. At this stage, I drilled the rigging holes for the model and attached one end of the rigging thread I normally use, the wonderful Aeroclub stretch thread. At this point, I also painted the wings, body and the undercarriage and tyres.

The next bit to tackle was the part that many modellers dislike about biplanes: putting on the top wing and aligning it with the bottom wing. Airfix have not helped here, and many modellers will experience severe frustration making this kit, because all the struts will have to be attached individually. The angle of the struts is 17 degrees to the normal axis. Everyone has his or her own way of tackling this. My method is to construct a jig from card, using the angle measured with a protractor. I then draw a long hypotenuse to get the correct angle (you don't have to be up at the pointy end of the triangle as 17 degrees is 17 degrees, irrespective of the length of the triangle sides). Tip, if you've recently changed jobs and have old business cards, then they are ideal for this function. I then use two pieces of card, one for the starboard and one for the port. Once the angle is cut in the cards, then they can be supported by making two other "L"-shaped sections from other pieces of card, and these are then taped to either side of the bottom of the angle-cut cards, so that they remain upright.

Next, cut two gaps in each card cut at the distance of the wing spacings and insert the wings, add a tail support, and voila, a self-supporting unit where you can add the struts individually. You can also move the assembly around to check alignment. I found that it was best to add the struts in a circular fashion starting with opposite extremes and then working in. Incidentally, the struts look a little too long for me, but I am prepared to live with it.

The final stage is to attach the undercarriage. One of the "vee" struts connecting to the axle simply broke away in my fingers on my model, and I had to do some surgery to get it back on during the undercarriage assembly. This meant that the undercarriage was slightly misaligned, but as you have to look hard to see, I left it as is.

I then finished off the rigging, and then attached the Vickers machine gun in the front of the fuselage and the Lewis machine gun on top of the wing.

Decals

Only one version is supplied by Airfix, Culley's Camel No. N-6812. Airfix suggest painting the kit topsides in H91 (also used as a German WW2 green), with H23 undersides (also used as a WW2 RAF sky). They also suggest painting the engine H27 (also used as a sea grey on WW2 FAA aircraft), and the wooden cockpit section a 50:50 mix of H10 and H33 (service brown and black, respectively).

However, even to a novice like me, these colours seem odd, and are not reflected in the box art. My limited understanding of RFC WW1 colours is that the topsides were mostly painted in either PC10 or PC12 with clear doped linen undersides. As for the decals, these are always a weak point for Airfix, and are probably reflected in the price of the kit. When measured on the sheet, the roundels appeared to be slightly too big, and the red and the blue seem incorrect, being too light and dark, respectively. The good news is that everything seemed to be in register. The Airfix Camel has red, white, and blue stripes on the tail unit control surfaces, and the decals for these were too large. I can only presume Airfix want modellers to trim these to shape.

Therefore, I decided to forego Airfix's colours and painted the camel in PC10 (Revell 46) with clear doped linen underneath (H103). I always paint the wings on biplanes before fitting. For decaling, I used some spare Pegasus RFC roundels that I have. As for the red, white and blue stripes on the tail unit control surfaces, and I found it best to paint those on, and I find H14 and H20 paints reasonable matches to Pegasus' blue and red, respectively.

Accuracy

I have a Chaz Bowyer reference book that says the span of the 2F1 was 26 ft 11 in and the length was 18 ft 6 in. The Airfix kit has a span of 11.8 cm and a length of 7.6 cm (27 ft 10 in and 17 ft 11 in, respectively). I don't know which is the correct value, but if Chaz Bowyer is right, then Airfix's kit is a bit wide on span and a bit short on length.

Overall

Unbelievably good value for money. However, I would not recommend this for a first-timer biplane builder, but rather for a modeller who has some easier biplanes already under their belt. There are certainly other 1/72 Camels about, and these may be easier to build. This is an incredibly cheap kit, but remember that it is an old model, and it is tricky to build in parts. However, as is usual with Airfix, once constructed and painted, it comes up a very nice looking model. I am not sure at all about the Airfix recommended colour scheme, and perhaps someone can enlighten me on this.

Related Reviews:-

Academy 1/32 Sopwith Camel F1

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