The extensive Farman 190 series spawned a prolific progeny,
among them a dedicated ambulance version, the Farman 197S, the S standing for
Sanitaire.
The 197S had some modifications to better accomplish its task,
the most visible being the door/hatch used to load and unload the patients on
the left side of the fuselage and of course the furnishing of the interior to
accommodate two stretchers and an assistant.
It is most likely that the aft door on the right fuselage
side was deleted too since it would have been useless. It had a Lorraine Mizar
engine instead of the usual power plants for the 190 family.
Some research was done to fill the gaps in the
documentation, and useful information came from Michel Barriere and Alain
Bourret, among others, for which I am indeed grateful. The machine depicted got
later on the Uruguayan CX-ABH registration.
The images of the in-progress building will give you a view
of the techniques and procedures used, and all in all more than 140 parts were
fabricated for this project.
A few items were adapted Aeroclub Models after-market parts
which saved some time, always important when you are spending a lot of it in
research and the fabrication of the model. The interior (cockpit and cabin) was
taken care of, depicting the stretchers’ holder, interior lights, pilot
“gruyere cheese” seat, control wheel, rudder bar, instrument panel and a few
holders; as well as exterior details, like the wing tank details, Venturis
(two), nav lights, oil radiator, control horns, cables and the multiple struts,
about two dozens of them between big and small. Fine wire rings were made and
inserted as window sills, leaving enough space for the transparencies to be
glued from the outside at a later stage –after done with the exterior
painting-. The stretcher hatch and the access door were positioned open. The
open door shows the furrow into which a slider runs to open the window, which
was depicted half way down. I also carved a wood prop from a Popsicle –replacing
the metal one that came with the engine- to be more faithful to the original,
adding a photoetched boss. An area that proved to need quite a time was the
cockpit glassing. The issue was solved, after a few trials and discarded parts,
with a front panel, two side rectangular panels and two triangular windows, as
per original. These transparencies have same angles involved, and are wrongly
depicted in some plans of the type. At some point during preparations the
aftermarket metal Venturis went to the great beyond, so replacements were
fabricated as per photos. I spent a lot of time under my desk looking for lost
parts and I am thinking about installing some speakers and furnish a pillow for
that area.
References prescribe a sort of whitish aluminum for the
French planes. Wing tanks were painted another hue, and so was an area on the
nose, close to the engine.
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