Sopwith Triplane

	This is another old kit - the Revell 1:72 Sopwith Triplane. Built straight out of the box, with the cowling first painted silver and then overpainted in black. This was in turn scratched off with a sharp blade to represent flaked-off paint.
Control horns were added from scrap brass sheet cut out with scissors from the bits left over from photo-etched parts. The rigging is elastic thread. This passes through the middle wing in places, and I defy anyone to get the wires to go straight through the holes as per the original.

I think the Sopwith Tripehound was the aircraft which first sparked off my love of triplanes, I remember seeing 'Dixie' in the Shuttleworth collection (?) when I was a boy.

In the mid - 'eighties I designed and built a 'flying' 1:24 scale version, rubber powered, with hollow ribs built up of preformed strips of heat-formed 1/64" balsa laminate. I seem to recall there being over a hundred separate pieces to each wing half -must have been mad!

I never did find out if it flew, as I couldn't bear to see it damaged. I still have the model, and intend to remove the tissue covering from the wings, varnish it and use it as a static model. er, when I find the time, that is...