Thursday, March 30, 2017

Peyret Tandem glider (From the archives, 2008)

(Model built and article written in 2008)


The plane:
French extravagance and flair is not just limited to fashion, as this Alérion Peyret of 1922 demonstrates. Of tandem-wing configuration and with a fuselage in need of a corset, it nevertheless won the soaring competition –at the hands of Maneyrol- at Itford, England, in 1922 setting an endurance record of 3 hours 22 minutes. Some time later Maneyrol pushed the record beyond the 8 hours mark with the same plane.
The model:
At 6.6 meters of span it is small in 1/72 scale. Images will walk you through the building process.
A succinct interior was provided. Struts were from Contrail and Strutz! But you have to eat Liverwurst as you use the latter, which guaranties success.
Thanks Rich for the info on this one!


















“…There is no better model than the one you are going to build next”
Styrenides (Greek modeler and olive farmer, 600 B.S.)

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Payen PA-101 (From the archives, 2007)


(model built and article written in 2007)


Payen Pa 101
Retro-futurism at its best

Credited as the first delta wing plane and the first delta canard, this extremely streamlined racing machine was created by French designer Roland Nicolas Payen. It was supposed to receive an inline engine to fit the carefully polished lines of the plane, but what it got was a radial that had to be adapted to the existing fuselage, creating a sight that we only thought could come out of a comic magazine of the era.
Before you ask, yes, it did fly. It never made it to the races or speed record flights, but for sure all involved had a lot of fun.
The first –very cautious- flight was made by Louis Massotte, chief pilot for Bleriot, on October 1934.
In April 1935 is flown by Jean Meunier. After several flights that demonstrate the critics the viability of the design, it had a bad landing and although not very badly damaged it is decided to proceed instead with other designs.

The Model:
Some of you may be already familiar with the scratch process, visible in the photographs, with just an addendum this time: a Fimo fuselage, a material I am told is similar to Sculpey and other “bakeable” polymers.
Prop and wheels came from Aeroclub, the basis for the engine was a partial from a left over of the Northrop Gamma Williams Brother kit, as was the cowl. This last element had to be “stretched” with the addition of a wide styrene strip and some valve cover bumps added, as depicted in the images.
The exhaust that you can see in front of the cylinders was made of painted soldering wire.
One funny fact is that while painting it, as I usually do on the balcony, a wind gust blew the model out of the board but landed undamaged . This little thing really wants to fly!





















L'Aviation légère en France Roger Gaborieau

L'Aviation légère en France
Roger Gaborieau
Espace Air Passion - Blue Ciel diffusion
This is a big, thick, marvelous book, packed with images and information about a period of aviation that many of us love (1920-1942), mostly Golden Age. It's scope encompasses just France, but touches tangentially and briefly planes from another countries.
If you don't read French, you may be delighted and well served anyway because of the amount and quality of the images, graphics and hard data -that are universal-.
It also includes sailplanes and even flying models.
There are some color profile drawings, but I did not see plans or 3views.
The quality of the paper, binding and printing of this publication is exquisite.
My book came from France (I live in California) superbly packed and well protected, even shrink-wrapped, and arrived in less than two weeks by special (printed material) mail, so your mailing costs are reduced.
This is certainly a book that is worth every cent you spend, and will guarantee many happy days of perusing and inspiration (in my case) for modeling projects.

You can see a few images and reviews in French here:
and here:

I have made during the years many of the machines I see portrayed in the book (almost all scratchbuilt), and I must confess I do love those unusual French designs, as well as some of the more conventional ones.
Here a list of links for the articles in this blog for those models, some made many years ago, some more recently. And that's why I love this kind of books, they do not only provide very useful information, but kindle the flame of modeling (not all of these models have their counterparts in the book, but there are scores of others in the book that I now want to model!):

Payen Pa. 101

Farman 1020

Auburn-Payen AP-10

Elytroplan

Riout 102T Alerion

Pou du ciel

Peyret Sailplane

Farman F.250

Clement Triplane

Arnoux Simplex Racer

Peyret Mauboussin PMH X

Nieuport Delage NiD 37 racer

Caudron Simoun

Delanne II and Moreau JM-10

Morane Saulnier MS230 Detroyat conversion

Morane Saulnier MS225 Detroyat conversion

Farman 200 Tourisme

Farman F.190

Caudron C.600

Arnoux Stablavion

Aubrun-Payen AP-10 (From the archives, 2007)

Aubrun-Payen AP 10
 

Specially conceived to fly to the Boulangerie, get the highest possible number of baguettes and croissants and get back on time for breakfast with minimum fuss.
A collaborative venture between Nicolas Roland Payen and Aubrun originated this cute little French plane that was propelled by a 25 hp AVA engine.
It flew in 1935 and 1936 receiving later a 40 hp engine which modified a tad the nose profile.
At 4.95 meters of wingspan this tiny plane was a consistent flyer of which a derivative, two-place version was conceived but ultimately not produced.
Quite a sight it must have been with those curvaceous, moth-like elegant lines and the purr of the small power plant.