Sud Ouest S.O. 6000 Triton by Mach 2

1/72 scale
Kit No.
Retail: $29.99
Decals: One version
Comments: Short run, basic kit, engraved panel lines, crude reproduction with accuracy issues; extensive sanding of some parts will be necessary

History

The Sud Ouest SO 6000 Triton has the distinction of being France’s first indigenously produced jet aircraft, flying for the first time on November 11, 1946. At the time, France was struggling to jump-start its aviation industry in the wake of World War II, and was eager to produce a jet-powered aircraft. Its first entry into the world of jet-powered flight became the Sud Ouest SO 6000 Triton, a two-seater experimental trainer.  Design work on the Triton had begun in secret during the Nazi occupation of France in 1943, with a team led by aeronautical engineer Lucien Servanty. Servanty had redesigned late versions of the Block MB.150 series of single seat fighters during the war, notably the MS. 155, and would later be best remembered as a key figure driving the design of the Concorde supersonic airliner.

After some initial teething problems, the Triton became a success not only as a trainer but as a trial and data collection platform, helping to advance French interest in jet propulsion and close the distance with the work already completed by competitors in Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Like many early jets, the Triton was initially underpowered, using a single German Junkers Jumo 004 turbojet as its power plant – the same engine fitted to the cutting edge Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter that appears late in World War II. This engine was readily available as it had been produced in France for the Germans during the war. While a huge advancement at the time, the Jumo 004 had little stamina; in Luftwaffe service, the average engine had an endurance of only about ten hours before it required an overhaul.

The Triton’s performance (top speed was initially a sleepy 250 mph) did not significantly improve until Sud Ouest arranged to acquire examples of the Rolls Royce Nene 101 series turbojet then being produced locally under license from de Havilland Aircraft for the French de Havilland Vampires (a British design that was one of the first major post-war jet fighters in the West).  Servanty’s design called for a stressed metal skin monoplane aircraft powered by a single turbojet engine. The turbojet was to be aspirated by a wide-mouth air intake arrangement at the front of the aircraft, with a portion of the intake trunking running through the cockpit itself. Unlike other jet aircraft of the early post-war years, the French design offered two interesting design features – its engine was buried within the fuselage (as opposed to being located in underslung nacelles) and a crew of two were seated in a side-by-side arrangement. A tricycle undercarriage was also worked into the airframe and ejection seats were planned.

The Triton was a prolific test aircraft, completing well over 150 flights and served in its intended role as trainer for an all-new generation of French jet fighter pilots. It proved valuable in introducing airmen to the nuances and speeds at which jet-powered aircraft operated, particularly when compared to even the fastest propeller-driven fighters. The Triton was capable of a maximum speed of 593 miles per hour and a service ceiling of 39,375 feet. While not as advanced as jet trainers seen in Britain and the United States, such as the Lockheed T-33 and others, the SO 6000 Triton served French aviation well.

Six SO 6000 aircraft were completed. Prototype 01 was the first French aircraft to fly under jet power but ended its career with just eight flights before being retired in 1947. Prototype 02 was never flown as it awaited the original French turbojet engine that was not to be. Prototype 03 was fitted with a powered ejection seat (unlike the first two prototypes) but only flew twice. Prototype 04 had the most influential flying career of them all, completing 189 flights. Prototype 05 was flown just eight times before being retired and Prototype 06 never advanced beyond its intended static testbed role. Prototype 03 survives today as a protected museum showpiece at the Musee de ‘lAir et de l’Espace of Le Bourget Airport in Paris.

Impressions

This was my first Mach 2 kit, and while I had heard horror stories about their quality, the S.O. 6000 Triton was nowhere near as bad as I had anticipated. I was pleasantly surprised by the kit’s engraved panel lines, which held up fairly well to sanding. The surface finish of the major airframe components was a bit rough in places, and the wings in particular required sanding to remove pimples and other rough spots. What was not so easily cured were the sinkholes of rather unpredictable shape and size, but the worst of these were on the under surface of the wings, so I did not trouble with them. Others were puttied and sanded down.

The major defect of the kit was the multitude of unusually large, bulky connectors attaching individual parts to the sprues. Roughly half of all sanding was done to remove the remnants of these connectors, which in each case required a thoughtful decision about what tool to use to get the parts safely free of the sprue: nippers, an Xacto knife, or a small modeling saw. In some instances the most careful sawing resulted in broken parts anyway – namely the main landing gear doors, both of which broke while being removed from the sprue. While I am occasionally ham-fisted, the culprit in this case was the sheer thinness of the plastic. The doors may be to scale, but they are entirely too lightweight for safe removal from the sprue.

Construction

A word of warning – this kit is a definite tail-sitter, given the positioning of the tricycle landing gear. I super-glued a support beneath the rear fuselage, as I could not figure out how to cram an appreciable amount of weight into the nose, which is pretty tightly packed, thanks in part to the nose intake arrangement.

The kit has a rather basic cockpit. The largest piece of this assembly is the cockpit floor, a part featuring an outsize bulge running along the length of the middle of the floor which is so big it nearly obscures the two pilots’ views of one another, as they are seated in tandem in a side-by-side arrangement with the bulge in between. The bulge is the housing protecting the intake trunking, as the Triton had a single large intake located in its nose perhaps no more than eight feet in front of and slightly below the pilots.

A rear bulkhead, two seats, and an instrument panel complete the cockpit parts. No control yoke or other details are provided, and the only part with any attempt at engraving is the main instrument panel, which has basic recessed details representing its dials. The cockpit floor is cemented to another part bearing the engraved details of the nose wheel well, as the well is immediately below the cockpit. The completed assembly is cemented into the left half of the fuselage, which can be closed up once you cement in two smooth clamshell-like parts representing the wheel wells for the main landing gear into round openings in the lower part of the interior of the fuselage mid-section. There is no part representing a tail pipe, and the rear opening of the Triton is bare, allowing a view all the way to the back side of the rear cockpit bulkhead.

The wings are to scale but surprisingly small, and seem to be made of slightly denser plastic than the fuselage. This may help them adhere to the fuselage when the time comes to attach them, because using cyanoacrylate glue I had no difficulty with them at all, despite the fact that they bore no locator pins. The same is true of the rear stabilizers.

The part for the lip of the nose intake required putty and sanding, as did the seam for the two fuselage halves, but the wings and stabilizers formed a solid join, thanks in part to Zap-a-Gap. The wheels of the main landing gear each consist of two halves, which is a bit unusual in this scale. A small amount of sanding eliminated the seams. The entire nose gear in contrast, is a single part.

A significant challenge with this kit was the cockpit windscreen and windows, which are molded as a single large clear piece that includes the cockpit roof. This part was unusual in that the portions of it representing the roof and framing were frosted, while the windscreen and window sections were relatively clear. I say “relatively” because given the quality of the plastic, I felt the need to dip it in Future and set it aside to dry – a process that did actually clear up some of the cloudiness in the clear portions.

The challenge with the windscreen part was twofold. First it had to be masked for painting. Second, it would have to be puttied to hide its join seam with the fuselage as much as possible. I opted to tackle both at once as the simplest solution. I cemented the part to the fuselage once the Future had dried and hardened, then masked the clear sections with a combination of Tamiya tape and Maskol. This allowed me to do the puttying and sanding in advance, then paint the part along with the rest of the airframe.  The side intakes were the most fiddly. They are quite small (I believe even smaller than on the actual aircraft, looking at the photos) and involved meticulous sanding and reshaping once I finally removed them from the sprue. This was a nerve wracking exercise because I was constantly in fear that I would drop one of them – and good luck finding it again if that happened.

Accuracy Issues

A look at the photograph of the S.O. 6000 Triton from Le Bourget Museum (at right) clearly shows that Mach 2’s windscreen is not accurate. The actual Triton had multiple overhead windows fitted into the cockpit roof, not just one. The auxiliary intakes along the fuselage sides may be a bit small for 1/72 scale. Finally, the nose gear doors are clearly oversized and not fully accurate in shape. That said, the kit is still a reasonably good rendition of the original, and with care will turn heads.

Painting

I had little guidance on the cockpit, as my photos of the Triton from Le Bourget Museum don’t show its interior at all, so I let my imagination run free. The cockpit is airbrushed a Dark Ghost Grey by Tamiya, one of their newer lacquer series of paints, LP-36. The seats are Humbrol Matt RAF Blue (an enamel) and the instrument panel is Flat Black.

The S.O. 6000 Triton itself is painted Aluminum, an AK Interactive lacquer, which was airbrushed on over a base coat of Alcad’s Gloss Black Base (Primer). The latter works extremely well but can be difficult to work with if not thinned with liberal amounts of alcohol. I thinned it to a ratio of 60% alcohol, 40% Primer and laid down a series of 4-5 thin coats, all of which dried completely in 20-30 minutes. With the primer on and dried, I proceeded to airbrush the plane with the AK Interactive Aluminum. The only real challenge with the painting was the minor clean-up required for the windscreen part once the masking was removed. I did some minor weathering using MiG Productions Dark Wash to treat the panel lines.

Markings

The kit decals are unremarkable except for a tendency of the small ones (“S.O. 6000 Triton”) to break rather easily. The rudder decals in particular are problematic, and are best discarded. My advice is to take the time and trouble to simply paint the French tri-color onto the rudder. First of all, this particular marking did not match the shape of the kit’s rudder exactly. The rear red stripe on both of these markings has a little protrusion for what can only be a trim tab extending out along the trailing edge of the rudder – a protruding trim tab that does not exist on the actual model.

To get them to match, it’s necessary to trim off the little protrusion – but this cuts into the marking itself, and given decal’s age (Mach 2 released this kit in 1992), the red stripe portion of the decal splintered on contact with water as a result. Bottom line, the rudder decals were applied, damaged in the process, and had to be painted over. On balance, the kit looks better as a result, as the rudder decals are not worth the paper they’re printed on – they do not have uniform color and the white stripe of the tri-color, before being painted over, was printed so faintly that it was translucent, allowing parts of the aluminum airframe underneath to show through, as though the decal was actually some kind of threadbare fabric. The other decals, most notably the large call letters, went on without incident and responded well to decal solvent. It is interesting that there are no roundels included in the kit, for there were six different Triton aircraft, and at least one or two of them bore the French national marking.

Conclusion

While crude in some respects, Mach 2’s S.O. 6000 Triton builds up into a fairly well detailed kit in terms of its external appearance, accuracy issues notwithstanding. Its initial appearance can be deceiving, since I remember my first look into the box and the kit wasn’t all that impressive. It is not a crisp, flawlessly engineered model a la Tamiya, not by any means. But it is a better kit than the manufacturer’s reputation indicates. Highly recommended for those who want something a bit off the beaten track from the early Jet Age.

References

• www.militaryfactory.com
• https://tvd.im/aviation/1882-sud-ouest-so-6000-triton.html ~ Military Equipment Guide with Photos