!/48 Roland DVI's from Fly Models

[brian riedel]

Howdy,

Anybody heard of these? Just saw them in the Great Models newsletter.

FLY48004 - FLY48004 Roland D VI b
FLY48005 - FLY48005 Roland D VI a

Brian James Riedel

[Familyman]

http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/mo...ep-coming.html




Mikko

[Taffeleir]

Hi,

I came across this one as well, but does anyone knows
if these guys from Fly models have their own website.

[StephenLawson]

Fly kits are availble through Modelimex

[Galloway]

I just ordered one of each....they look pretty nice? I haven't had the chance to check out their Macchi's Anyone out there have those kits? (Macchis M.5s)

Ken

[BLOWHARD]

Please do let us know how they stack up against the Blue Max kits.

[Galloway]

Dave,

I sure will! But someone here will probably beat me to it......?


Ken

[Familyman]

Originally Posted by Taffeleir

Hi,

I came across this one as well, but does anyone knows
if these guys from Fly models have their own website.

Yep!

And they seem to have sprue shots and other pics of the Roland D.VI kits there now. Looks nice, but where's the Benz engine? Shouldn't we need one for D.VIb?


Fly - English


Mikko

[StephenLawson]

Originally Posted by Galloway

I just ordered one of each....they look pretty nice? I haven't had the chance to check out their Macchi's Anyone out there have those kits? (Macchis M.5s)

Ken

Hey Ken, I have the Maachi M5 and did a review of it.

[Rowan Broadbent]

Originally Posted by Familyman

Yep!

And they seem to have sprue shots and other pics of the Roland D.VI kits there now. Looks nice, but where's the Benz engine? Shouldn't we need one for D.VIb?


Fly - English


Mikko

Hello Mikko,

I've been waiting for this one! From the sprue shots the mouldings look very nice indeed and this should be an easier build than the Blue Max version. However you are correct about the Benz engine being required for the DVIb - unless a Mercedes was substituted in Czech service?!

The control surfaces are correct for the two versions, although the ailerons will need to be cut away from the top wing and the alternatives provided added for the 'a' model. They have also missed the additional cooling slots around the nose and additional access hatches for the 'a' version, which used the Mercedes engine.

As the kit stands it will not give you an accurate 'a' or 'b', rather a hybrid of both. To build a 'b' you will only need to substitute the engine, whereas for an 'a' you can use the rather nice looking Mercedes provided, but change the ailerons, fit the unbalanced elevators and attend to the nose cooling slots and access hatches and delete the under-nose oil cooler, the wing struts were also different - being steel tube with wooden fairings on the 'a' rather than the solid wood ones provided in the kit for the 'b'. I did this when I built the Blue Max kit as an 'a' last year:

http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/mo...-blue-max.html

Unless, of course I've missed something and the VIa kit includes a different fuselage moulding which isn't shown on the sprue shots. There are some etched square louvered access panels on the photo etched parts which don't seem to be mentioned in the instructions, so these might be intended for the nose area of the 'a' variant.

Overall, though, this looks to be a step forward from the BM kit, but will still need some work to portray either variant accurately. A bit of a shame but I'm sure that the resin Mercedes can be turned into a reasonable 48th scale representation of the Benz Bz IIIav with the addition of push rods and some scratch buiding for the valve gear. Perhaps the Karaya resin Benz Bz IV could be modified -

Karaya E4803 Benz Bz IV 200 hp (1:48)

It's a Bz IV, whereas the Roland D VIb used the quite different Bz III av with four valves per cylinder and two cam shafts with push rods on both sides of the block, it was discussed here:

http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/ai...z-bz-iiia.html

Although the BzIII was a smaller engine overall, I'm not sure it would notice in this scale??

There were some nice markings for the DVI.....