Eastern Express 1/72 Morane Saulnier Type I

EASTERN EXPRESS 1:72 MORANE SAULNIER TYPE I

Reviewer: David Kirk (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 9 October 2002

Aircraft History:

The Morane Saulnier Type I is an improved version of the Type N variant, and was originally designated Type Nbis. The type was a high wing monoplane braced by wires to a kingpost and the landing gear. The plane was tricky to handle and the Type N experienced a number of accidents within its first aircraft. The Type N was revised to NM standard which had a revised rear fuselage and modified tail unit. From this spawned the Type I which incorporated a 110-hp Le Rhone rotary engine. The Type I saw service with Russia but also saw very limited service with the French and British air forces before being replaced by the Nieuport 11.

The Kit:

Being an Eastern Express kit is not their own and simply a reissue of an older kit from another manufacturer. I wasn't sure who originally issued this kit but after talking to the right people around the traps I was able to learn it is an old Temeks mold, and possibly some say reboxed by Revell at some stage? There are certainly not many parts to this kit, less than 30 in total and it comes in essentially two sprues of a medium grey color. For the main part the sprues are flash free but a blob of it found itself attached to the engine cylinder block and rudder pieces. There is the finest of flash lines around a few other parts such as the fuselage as well. The parts are reasonably good quality, the surface detail is subtle and reasonably defined. The fabric covered wings and fuselage structure is quite good in my opinion.

Since there aren't a great deal of parts in this kit, I could almost list them all for you in a paragraph, but the breakdown is pretty simple. Fuselage halves incorporate the airframe minus the rear fin and rudder which is added separately. The engine has a cylinder block attached the to the nose and a half-ring is put around this later as well as a spinner, but the prop blades are separate pieces. The wings are left and right halves as are the small tailplanes. There is no cockpit in this kit provided as such, it is left up to the modeller to hollow this part out and add in a seat and the works.

Construction:

If you want any semblance of a cockpit in this thing you have to scratchbuild everything yourself, since the kit supplies absolutely nothing. Compounding this is the fact that the wings fit into fuselage slots which of course impede into the cockpit area. You need to really file these down on the fuselage interiors so you can actually put in a cockpit otherwise they are just in your way. A fair amount can be carved off without cutting into the plastic slots. Another option I thought of later was removing these jutting out covers all together, slicing very carefully (to match the contours of the fuselage) the appropriate length off the inner wing root and butt joining that to the fuselage.

Luckily some choices made with other Toko kits in the past meant that I had a few spare seats and the like to fit this cockpit out with. Perhaps not absolutely accurate for this plane but as far as I am concerned, better than the alternative of having nothing in there. There is also alternative aftermarket French WW1 brass-etched sets you could probably chase up and use for the cockpit too.

The fuselage halves didn't go together too well, but that was probably due to the nature of the work I carried out in the "office" but success was obtained and rubber bands used judiciously as clamping mechanisms while it dried. The fuselage mounted guns are also included in this step and the stickler for accuracy will probably want to hollow out the holes and stick the guns through which is how they appeared on the real aircraft. There is a prominent stitch line up the port fuselage sides which I left alone, although could not match it up on any photos which was probably due to the poor quality of the photos in question.

The wings did not fit too well into their 'slots' and I am sure it has nothing to do with the work I did on the fuselage interior to thin these blocks out. However, thinning the wings out at the ends and using the hobby knife to clear the opening of any flash etc, finally achieved a reasonable fit. A tiny bit of filler was run just along the join lines so the wing roots better blended into the fuselage.

The tailplanes and tail fin/rudder assembly was much easier and attach fairly well but are also a bit thick in scale representation. Of course the attachment points for the most part are via small locating pins whereas the real aircraft had rods that connected through the fuselage housing. Likewise the cylinder block which was painted first and cowling half-ring to represent the engine also presented no real problems. The tail skid bumper was particularly fiddly to attach and best affixed with super glue.

Like the tail skid bumper the landing gear is quite fiddly and some attention really needs to be paid in this area. A jig of some sort is recommended to sub assemble the undercarriage component so it is straight and level when the wheels are added and when the whole sub assembly is offered to the fuselage. Again I used super glue for added strength here. Construction was essentially completed with this.

Finally the rigging! Well best thing to say here is that you are basically on your own as little advice is given from the kit and you need some handy reference photos to devise this up yourself. For me some really thin fishing line was the goer but I have heard others use invisible spread and metal guitar string for theirs. A dab of super glue was enough to fix the line to the plastic.

Painting:

The color of the Morane Saulnier was French Linen which was an off-white color to almost a tan from the references I have been able to utilise. A very light grey is used for the metal components, probably a aluminium color. To highlight the folds in fabric a deeper color of the linen was used as I assumed those areas would have some shadows and not be as 'sun-faded' as the other areas.

Decals:

The decal sheet is small and includes only roundels and unit insignia, in this case Imperial Russian Aviation and skull and cross bones on the fin. I painted the fin white in the centre to give the skull section something to grab onto while the perimeters of the fin was outlined in black. The decals are a bit fin but conformed quite well with decal setting solution.

Accuracy:

An acceptable rendition of the Morane Saulnier Type I which captures its profile and lines quite well. To get a truly accurate version however, some work will need to be done in various areas as touched on in the construction phase above. The absence of a cockpit also lets the kit down.

Overall Recommendation:

Not a bad kit of an interesting and early French aircraft and a kit that straight out of the box will go together without too many dramas. However, some extra work, particularly providing a cockpit yourself, will definitely need to be done to put this kit into even a reasonable replica category. On this basis, really only recommended for the more advanced modeller able to put in a bit of work themselves to bring the kit out of the toy phase.

Related Reviews:-

Revell 1/72 Morane Saulnier Type N "Bullet"

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