Nieuport 11 by Eduard
1/48 scale
Kit No. 8070
Cost: $26.00
Decals: Five versions, all Armee de l’Aire, two of them Lafayette Escadrille
Comments: Detailed cockpit; standing pilot figure; Photo etch details for cockpit, engine, Lewis machine gun and elevator actuators
History
The Nieuport 11 “Bebe” (“Baby” – known officially as the “Nieuport 11 C1”) was one of the first true Allied fighters of World War I. Developed from a pre-war design built as a racing plane, the militarized version brought with it the expected excellent performance inherent in a racing machine built primarily for speed. Designed in a mere four months, the Nieuport 11 – retaining the “Bebe” nickname of its predecessor – proved instrumental in ending the dominance of German Fokker aircraft during 1916 in what came to be known as the “Fokker Scourge.” The French Nieuport series, as a whole, would end up becoming one of the best fighter lines in all of World War I, eventually being collectively recognized by the phrase “Nieuport Fighting Scouts”.
Le Societe Anonyme Des Etablissements, established in 1909 and founded by Eduoard de Nie Port, had delved successfully into racing sesquiplane airframes for some time prior to World War I. The sesquiplane approach was something of a biplane configuration although the lower wing area was noticeably smaller than the upper. With the onset of war in August of 1914, and a growing faith in aircraft, the Nieuport firm was charged with production of Voisan biplane using a “pusher” propeller arrangement.
This was necessitated by the lack of a competent machine gun synchronization system that could fire through a spinning propeller. This approach was adequate to counter early-war German fighter designs, but the ever-evolving development of combat aircraft with better and better performance meant that the pusher design, which avoided the need for synchronization gear altogether, would not prevail for long.
Nieuport Chief Designer Gustave Delage began designing a new type of biplane before World War 1 which would have competed in the 1914 Gordon Bennett Trophy Race. The aircraft had a sesquiplane wing arrangement and was given the company designation “Nieuport 10.” However, with France’s entry into the war that summer, the priority shifted to developing the single-seat Nieuport 10 into a military aircraft capable of meeting the Germans in the air on equal terms.
The Nieuport 10’s staggered wing configuration required the support of distinctive “V” struts and also wire bracing – as was common to aircraft of the period. The Nieuport 10 was soon adopted as a general purpose mount (sometimes armed with an upper wing Lewis machine gun) and two-seat trainer by the French Air Force. It acquired the nickname of “Bebe” – or “Baby” – a name that stuck with the militarized version for the span of her operational career. The Nieuport 10 was also adopted by Britain, Belgium, Brazil, Finland, Italy, Japan, Russia, Serbia, Thailand, Ukraine, the United States and the Soviet Union.
In the new militarized form, Delage attempted to retain much of the excellent performance specifications inherent in the preceding competition-minded racer. This approach would lay the foundation for an entire line of excellent French fighting aircraft still to come and make the Nieuport name a household name by war’s end. Delage’s work eventually manifested itself in the Nieuport 11, a lightweight, single-seat fighter with the same single-bay sesquiplane wing arrangement of the Nieuport 10.
The Nieuport 11 was the quintessential fighter of its time, featuring a fixed two-wheel undercarriage with tail skid, an open-air cockpit and biplane wings. It owed its fine lines, smooth contours and general pedigree to the earlier Nieuport racer and was fielded with a front-mounted 80 horsepower Le Rhone 9C, 9-cylinder, air-cooled rotary piston engine powering a two-blade propeller. The pilot sat positioned just behind and below the upper wing element with a generally good view out of the cockpit.
Primary armament was a single Hotchkiss- or Lewis-type 7.7mm (.303 caliber) machine gun fitted in the center of the upper wing, as the Allies still lacked a viable synchronized machine gun system that the Germans had already adopted. However, early Nieuport 11’s were not armed in any way, being true scouts in their reconnaissance role (primarily with British and French scout squadrons). Only when armed did they become “fighting scouts” able to operate as fighters when countering enemy aircraft and balloons. The Nieuport 11 was later modified to fire up to 8 x Le Prieur anti-balloon rockets – these weapons, crude by modern standards, looked like nothing more than oversized bottle rockets fitted in a staggered arrangement along the sides of the V-struts.
The Societe Anonyme des Etablissements Nieuport made the first deliveries of the Nieuport 11 beginning in 1915. It saw action for the first time on January 5, 1916. When the Battle of Verdun began on February 21, 1916, nine Nieuport 11 escadrilles were available for the struggle to wrest air superiority from the Germans. Nieuport 11’s quickly became the main weapon of the French fighter units in early 1916, and many aces at this stage of the war scored their victories while flying the Bebe. By the end of 1916, the Nieuport 11 began to be replaced in front line service by the Nieuport 17, and was re-tasked as an advanced fighter trainer. The Bebe was nowhere to be seen at the front by Summer 1917.
Upon its introduction, the Nieuport 11’s biplane wing design (generating more lift at the cost of increased drag) allowed Allied pilots to easily outmaneuver their German Fokker Eindekker monoplane adversaries, thanks in part to the ailerons incorporated into the wing design (as opposed to the simpler “wing-warping” action employed by German Eindeckers). Another advantage of the Nieuport 11 design was its excellent speed, rate-of-climb and agility. Its key limitation was its lack of a synchronized machine gun gear which limited the armament it could carry. The placement of the machine gun along the upper wing forced pilots to engage in an awkward reloading process, an operation that took the aircraft and pilot out of the fight for dangerously long periods of time, during which they were at the mercy of enemy aircraft.
This view of the Nieuport 11 shows how small it actually was. Nimble and fast, it proved a match for the Fokker Eindekker.
The Nieuport 11’s wings had a propensity to buckle violently in high-speed flight, leading to fractures or outright break ups (mainly due to the single-bay, V-strut nature of the design). It often took an experienced pilot to overcome these drawbacks and succeed in combat while flying the Nieuport 11. Several pilots earned the status of “Ace” after having flown Nieuport 11’s during portions of their career – including Albert Ball, Count Francesco Baracca, Billy Bishop, Jean Navarre and Charles Nungesser.
Italy produced the Nieuport 11 under license, manufacturing 646 examples as the “Nieuport 1100.” Sources suggest that local production occurred in Russia, Spain and the Netherlands as well. Such production of Nieuport 11s proved – both directly and indirectly – the excellence of the Gustave Delage design. The Bebe was officially retired from front-line service sometime in the summer of 1917 ,with the last Bebe squadrons being fielded in Italy. During its reign, the Bebe was largely responsible for a change in tactics on the part of the Germans – particularly during the pivotal Battle of Verdun (1916) where the “Baby” inflicted heavy losses on the enemy. As such, the value of the Nieuport 11 to the Allied cause could not be overstated.
In 1916, Nieuport also unveiled the “Nieuport 16” in an attempt to modernize and improve the Nieuport 11 design for the changing requirements of war. The Nieuport 16 had a 110 horsepower Le Rhone 9J rotary engine in a revised cowling. The attempt was more or less abandoned when the design proved too “front-heavy.” This initiative, however, led to the direct development of the Nieuport 17 which replaced the Nieuport 11 beginning in March of 1916 and, itself, would become one of the most famous warplanes of World War 1. Despite its relatively short career in the air, production of Nieuport 11s totaled approximately 7,200 Bebes — an impressive number for the time.
The Kit
Eduard’s Nieuport 11 is injection molded in beige plastic and consists of 70 parts on two sprues. There is also a single clear part for the windshield in its own plastic bag. A photo etch fret with an additional 34 metal detail parts is also included — this provides parts for the pilot’s seat, internal cockpit framing, instrument panel, and detailing parts for the Le Rhone rotary engine, Lewis machine gun and elevator actuators. Paint masks are included for the wings, tail surfaces and wheels. Modelers will have a choice of using the stock seat included in the kit, or the photo etch example. PE seat straps are also included.
It will be a challenge to remove the delicate metal cockpit frame from the photo etch sprue, but it will dress up the cockpit nicely, as will the individually mounted PE instruments and levers. Also included is a PE part for the instrument panel face with a film insert for the dials. There is a choice of three different mounts for the Lewis gun atop the upper wing, using a variety of different PE parts, as well as those which provide detail for the Lewis gun itself. The instructions include a very basic rigging diagram, and call out paint colors in the Tamiya, Humbrol, Revell, Testors and Gunze paint lines.
Markings
Decals are provided for five versions, all of which have aluminum cowlings and the French tri-color on the vertical tail. The first is a machine flown by Sgt. Raoul Lufbery of the Lafayette Escadrille (N124) in 1916, tail number N 1256. This aircraft is painted in a camouflage scheme of Green and Khaki over Aluminum dope under surfaces, and bears Lufbery’s initials on the fuselage sides in a fancy script.
The second is also a machine of the Lafayette Escadrille in 1916 flown by Sgt. Lawrence Rumsey, tail number N1290, also bearing a camouflage scheme of Green and Khaki over Aluminum dope under surfaces, and the word “RUM” on the fuselage sides. Third is the aircraft depicted on the box art, serving with Escadrille N12 in 1916, bearing a blue and white pennant with the number 12 on it in black, with a crescent moon along the fuselage sides; this airplane is painted with Clear Doped Linen overall, with the exception of the right lower wing, which appears to be a replacement from another aircraft. This wing has an under side painted in Aluminum dope, with the upper surface painted in a camouflage scheme of Green and Khaki.
The fourth and fifth machines are both attached to Escadrille N48 in 1916. The fourth is the mount of Lt. Armand de Turenne and has wings of Clear Doped Linen, while the fuselage is divided equally into three sections; the forwardmost section around the cockpit also appears in Clear Doped Linen, the mid-section of the fuselage is White, and the rear third is red. The white section bears the large emblem of a French horn with a banner of red and yellow diagonal stripes in its center. The fifth machine, also the mount of Lt. Armand de Turenne during 1916-17, appears to be the same aircraft as the fourth at a later stage of the war, for it bears a nearly identical paint scheme with the exception that the forwardmost section around the cockpit is painted in Blue.
Conclusion
This is an excellent kit of the first in a series of thoroughbred French fighters of World War I. Highy recommended.
References
- www.militaryfactory.com
- Eduard kit instructions