Albatros D.III OEFFAG 153 (Weekend Edition)

[Mike]

Albatros D.III OEFFAG 153 (Weekend Edition)

1:48 Eduard

The D.III was the follow-on to the successful D.I and D.II, and entered service in late 1916, immediately finding favour with its pilots for its handling and climbing ability. After a problem with the lower wing spar briefly grounding it, it went on to be a successful fighter aircraft, with around 500 being produced until it was superseded by the D.V.

This boxing depicts one of the Austro-Hungarian aircraft that were built under license in Wiener-Neustadt by the keyboard skills testing Oesterreichische Flugzeugfabrik AG, which was thankfully for me shortened to Oeffag. The 153 stands for the series, of which this aircraft was the middle, the first being the 53, the last 253. This aircraft was engined with a 149kW Austro-Daimler engine, which gave improved performance over the usual Mercedes blocks. The Austrian aircraft had their Schwarzlose machine guns mounted within the fuselage, which made them impossible for the pilot to coax back into action if they failed, which was a problem as they were quite unreliable.

The kit arrives in a Weekend Edition badged box, which if you're unfamiliar with Eduard's boxings, means that you get the plastic and a single set of decals, and you're supposed to finish the kit over a weekend. Being a slow modeller however, I tend to ignore that!

Inside the box are five sprues of a sandy colored styrene, plus a small sheet of decals and a small instruction booklet. Construction begins with the engine, which is nicely detailed for the scale. The cockpit is next, with a few decals provided for the instrument panels, after which the fuselage is closed up, with a helpful side-view drawing showing the proper location of all the component parts. The top deck is a single piece, and attaches along panel lines, which should make for easy filling. The aerodynamic tapering nose fixes to the front, and a cowling goes over the Austro-Daimler engine.

The wings and tail feathers are all single thickness parts, and the detail is excellent, including a small dip between the ribs, and rib-tape detail evident. The trailing edges are nice and thin, and the scalloped edges are pleasing to the eye, as are the separate flying surfaces. The V-shaped interplane struts fit into small sockets top and bottom, as do the cabane struts. The V-struts are handed, with the longer strut of the pair facing forward, so a little care will be needed here.

The landing gear and tail skid build up simply, and the last item on the build list is the prop with snub-nosed spinner. A single rigging diagram is included in the last construction stage, which is nice and simple, featuring a relatively small number of wires. What might not be evident from that diagram however, is that there are wires holding the landing gear taut, but these can be seen on the box-art, which should assist in placement.

The decal sheet depicts airframe 153.27, flown by Georg Kenzian of Flik 55/J, Pergine Winter 1917. The overall finish is a dark green, with light blue undersides. A stylised digit 2 and blue/white bisected arrow shape bring a little color to this otherwise simple scheme, and plenty of stencils are included to add more interest, which are detailed on a separate decaling diagram. The decal sheet is clear and in register, with a thin carrier film, which has only a small overprint.

Conclusion

A great little kit of a lesser known variant and operator of this attractive aircraft, which is bristling with crisp detail on every sprue. My only minor gripe is the rigging diagram, which would have benefited from being in two colors, so that the less prominent wires showed up better against the lines of the airframe.

Review sample courtesy of

[Texian]

Gad-ZOOKS!  There be some dust on this here old topic! (5Years Let's see if I can knock some of it off.

 

Howdy. Nice little review, thank you.  I am fixing to try this one myself.  One curious discrepancy between your and my kit is that mine is molded in dark blue/gray plastic, not the color you described.

 

One bright ray however. You wrote;

Quote

My only minor gripe is the rigging diagram, which would have benefited from being in two colors, so that the less prominent wires showed up better against the lines of the airframe.

 

As it happens, Eduard has this same aircraft in a "ProfiPACK" version which has among it's extra goodies a multi-color instruction sheet which in fact DOES show the rigging in different color from the basic black/gray.  The good news is it's available on line in pdf. I printed out the desired pages.  Here's a link to it...

 

It also shows the extra detail such as the correct seat which has holes in it. Such can be drilled through the 'Week end" edition's solid back rest.  Likely other details as well.

My biggest gripe is the color scheme on this which doesn't impress me at all.  Frankly, I wouldn't have bought this individually. What I did was find a couple or three kits I wanted in a lot of 8 on Ebay. I made an offer and got a deal on them. I pulled the ones I wanted and listed the others individually.  I got my money back anyway but this one nobody wanted.I decided to use this to experiment some modeling techniques on it.

 

I'll do some posting on it as I get along. (I'm not very fast either!)

Edited February 19, 2017 by Texian
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