The Atom Furnace: Those Magnificent Men....Rehab of The 1911 AVRO Triplane

This is a graphic of the existing AVRO replica used in the movie "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines; Or How I flew From London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes"

The model I rehabbed is a 1/48 scale kit that is still in production but was introduced years ago, most likely as a result of the movie - released in 1965 - a funny movie BTW, in my humble opinion. The model in question was constructed by my brother as a youngster and essentially unpainted; however, it was his first use of applying "control wires" to a model. I decided to keep the work that he did. He used black thread which is heavy in scale, but held up over the decades and required very little repair, plus it is sturdy and flexible and could accept all of the handling required to accomplish the rehab.

This craft has an interesting history considering only one was built and scrapped in 1911. The replica shown above was built for the movie still exists and is flown to this day.

Also, for us history buffs not that familiar with pre-war aircraft, there was real air race in July of 1911. The Circuit of Europe Air Race had a 8,000 pound sterling prize for completing the entire circuit, plus smaller prizes for the various legs of the circuit (example London-Calais 400 pounds). The entire circuit did begin in Paris and ended in London, a total of 990 miles. There were 43 pilots that started the race and 9 that finished the entire circuit, won by Jean Louis Conneau (flying as Andre Beaumont) in a time of 58 hours, 36 seconds with ROLAND GARROS finishing second. Unfortunately there were three fatalities, all three occurring during the first leg of the circuit - Paris to Liege - one, Leon Lemartin, crashed on takeoff and died on arrival at the hospital.

Here we go, out of the storage box. Doesn't look too bad, although as I removed the prop and the fuel tank and started to handle the craft, the wings got wobbly and struts started falling off - AHHH! So my first task became examining and re-gluing struts hinges and all connection points.

Next came heating and stretching some old sprue to replace missing skid struts - those "Gray" ones! Notice also that I have added a brace at the top of the vertical radiator and a radiator feed hose to the motor. I used 32 gauge wire for both. I had to carefully remove paint, with my xacto blade, from between the the radiator pipes. The four cylinder "Green" motor was water cooled and provided 35 HP, which pulled this 650 pound (plus pilot) at a break neck 25 MPH!! This is the reason no one was seriously injured during the triplanes several crashes.

You can now see that I have painted the replaced struts as well as applied copper to the radiator and touched up the motor itself (black, silver, copper).

The fuel tank that I pulled from under the top wing, I drilled and added a (26 gauge wire) fuel line.

The tank and fuel line are painted copper and placed back under the wing. Note that there is not much detail to the driver of this plane so I tackled him next.

A total pilot repaint was needed. His blue jacket, cap, goggles, scarf, gloves and of course, refreshed detail of his face (skin color, eyes, beard and mustache). I also had to carefully insert my micro brush to finish an uncompleted steering wheel and yoke.

Recall this image. Note the absence of a visible radiator and the fuel tank is much larger. When you look at other photos of the replica you will notice slot vents at the nose under the motor. An obvious relocation of the required radiator for the upgrade to a 90HP Cirrius II motor. Now the pilot can better see straight ahead of him and get the craft up to 35 MPH!!

With the AVRO on it's back I rubbed a bit of Tamiya rust along the molded "canvas stitching" for detail. The other point of this pic is to show the wheel. The actual wire wheels are approximated in the molds but are solid (of course). I chose to paint the inserts the same blue as the motor housing and dry brush over the molded wire spokes with silver.

Now the fun begins. Without rigging a multi-wing aeroplane looks incomplete. I had to sketch out my pattern so I would not get lost during the process. Some folks love to do this, I am not really one of them, but I do it enough that it is not too objectionable

And so it begins. A several day process of threading, tying, gluing, and waiting and starting again, back and forth, up and down. The key for me is patience as the monofilament I use is highly susceptible to static and often seems to have a mind of it's own and wants to go where it wants and not where I want.

Half way along...........

Before I get to the starboard side I decide to take a break for my sanity and paint the struts as well as more weathering/detail of the wings and fuselage. The Tamiya kit comes out again and I brush more along the stitching plus framework in order to give the impression of a somewhat opaque canvas.

I almost forgot to mention that I trimmed up the prop, re-painted it and inserted it into the motor....

Now my brother had some old decal sheets of numbers and letters. I freshened up the blue at the front motor mount and wanted the word AVRO as is seen on the replica. When they arrived....

.....instant disintegration, just add water - AHHHH! So much for old decals. I told myself that I still wanted letters, so I pulled out a toothpick. Yuk, not what I had hoped, so I cleaned that up and repainted the nose blue (again) and tried out my fine tip brush with the following result.....

Not perfect, but not too bad either - I'll take it!

I did find some viable decals in my reserve stash - a bit small but at least now the AVRO has it's Air Race Tail Number.

So now I had to get back to completion of the rigging. Two days later......

........the wings are finally done. Now comes the front rigging of the carriage struts. Brother Bob came through with a clear photo of how the front rigging looked (he is able to locate things I seem to have trouble with). The pattern required some strut notching to catch the monofilament and make the process a bit easier (instead of having to "tie" everything), but it took only four pieces of the thread - tying, gluing, waiting, snipping off the tails and final tie offs and......