The Gordon Bennett Air Race 1911 Part 3: Nieuport II

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Evening All,

The next topic(s) are the two Nieuport II's which were flown by L. Chevalier and E. Nieuport, (the designer and owner of the company). (In fact Chevalier flew two aircraft in the race, but I will only build one to represent his entry). Like the Bleriots I am having problems with these models as I only have one decent photo of Chevalier's machine, and I cannot see the tail surfaces properly on that! As is the case with most, if not all, of these pioneering types, they varied considerably during their flying careers, so although there are preserved and reconstructed examples of the Nieuport II in museums, I cannot be sure that they accurately represent the machines flown on 1 July 1911 at Eastchurch. It is also evident that some authors have confused the type II with the type IV: easy enough given that the designations are probably post-construction and that the latter was derived from the former. What I have been able to establish beyond doubt is that Chevalier's machine had a 40 hp Nieuport flat twin cylinder engine, and Nieuport's machine had a 70 hp rotary. The only, (very poor), photo that I can find of Nieuport's machine shows that it had a similar rudder to Chevalier's aircraft, but I am still not certain what the horizontal tail surfaces looked like. I have two drawings of the Nieuport II, one of which I am sure is from Flight which shows a V shaped horizontal stabilizer with small elevators. The second drawing shows the early tail arrangement with double rudders and a large elevator, and separate horizontal stabilizer. I have a very good photograph of the front of a machine with the flat two cylinder engine and that will be very helpful when I construct Chevalier's model. Th rotary engine seems to have been completely uncowled and without a cover on the top of the fuselage: in the museum exhibit photos that I have seen a curved plate has been mounted over the engine even though they are two cylinder types.

I am going to work on the principal that as these were racing machines, weight would have been kept to a minimum, so on both models the engines will be uncovered as on the very early models of the type. However the front of the fuselage sides was slightly different as shown in the image below which also shows the fuselage top and bottom, horizontal tail surface and wings. I have added ribs to the wings using Jammy Dog tape:

I have made the 40hp Nieuport two cylinder flat engine from card and pieces of rod but there will be more pipework and wires to be added when I attach it to the front of the model. The seats were cut from card and painted:

I intend to use a Small Stuff 70 hp Gnome rotary for Nieuport's machine - why reinvent the wheel when there is no need to because a near perfect example is readily available in the drawer?

Thanks for looking.

Stevef.

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Evening All,

I cut the fuselage sides from 30 thou card and the top and bottom from 20 thou card because it is easier to place the thinner card between the sides and achieve a square cross section. I only added a minimal amount of internal details as they would not be visible after the fuselage was assembled. I also added strips of scrap plastic to enable the bottom and top decking to be accurately placed and secured:

I glued one side to the bottom first and allowed that to dry out. The cockpit floor, seat and a control column was put into place next: I did not add a control wheel because this was tricky to make as it was so small and it would not be seen anyway. The second side was glued in place and also allowed to set. Finally the upper decking was glued in place but only after I had cut and filed the cockpit cut-out:

The photo shows what I had intended to be Nieuport's machine with a 75 hp Gnome rotary engine. However the shape of the nose is wrong so I will have to make a new fuselage for that model. In the meantime I had assembled Chevalier's model which had the two cylinder engine but I did not photograph it until after the next stage. The joints were cleaned up with a file and glasspaper and any small gaps filled and sanded. The engine was covered by a small plate on Chevalier's machine so I laminated some card and filed the shape required from the resultant block, and cut two side pieces from 20 thou card:

The engine cover parts were cemented to the front of the fuselage, gaps filled and the whole sanded and smoothed. I made a small windscreen from card - again this was filed into shape before it was cemented to the fuselage and the gaps filled and sanded smooth:

The front of the fuselage and inside of the engine cover was painted aluminium as these were metal parts on the original. The engine was cemented into place when the painting was finished:

The model was painted in a mixture of Revell white with a tiny amount of beige (314) to cause the white to be slightly discoloured. The metal panels of the nose were aluminium:

The small details of the engine were fixed - the carburetor and fuel pipe underneath the engine block, and the brackets on the sides of the engine. The undercarriage consisted of two pairs of V struts joined by a single central rod with a spade at the front. There was a second rod which passed from under the nose to the rear V struts. The V struts were filed into aerofoil section from 30 x 40 thou strip. Plastic rod made the central parts with the spade cut and shaped from card:

I will make the wheels next.

I will provide details of Nieuport's model later as I want to finish the model of Chevalier's machine for a club show at the weekend.

Thanks for looking.

Stevef.

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Evening All,

I did complete the earlier model but I have still not photographed it as I am waiting to finish the seconnd II that I am building. I will photograph both models at the same time later.

I have been away from home a lot recently, and will be again in the near future so the second model in this group has been taking a long time to get even near to completion. I have had to remake the fuselage because the first attempt was too narrow: I had not allowed for the larger diameter of the rotary engine when compared with the two-cylinder flat on the earlier model. It was easier to just make a completely new fuselage and scrap the old one, but in doing so I made the rear a little too wide, but by the time I noticed I had already moulded two nose parts and finally got one of them to fit properly, so I decided to leave things as they are and hope that nobody will look too closely. And that includes you lot!!!

E. Nieuport's machine had a 75 hp rotary engine which meant that the front of the fuselage had to be widened and a new panel added to the top of the fuselage to allow the engine to be properly installed. This meant that the nose looks like the later Nieuport IV machine: the difference was that the IV had a modified undercarriage and different shaped wings. The II nose however looks the same as a IV:

The curved upper part of the nose was push moulded from 30 thou card. The horizontal tail surface was also made from card and is also like that of the IV.

I fitted the engine behind a bar which extended horizontally across the nose below the cowling. The wings were fixed to the fuselage - they are butt joined but are strong enough because they will not be carrying any weight:

The wings, fuselage and tail surfaces were painted acrylic white with a touch of Revell Beige (314) to give the slightly discoloured shade of clear doped linen. The nose parts were metal on the rotary engined Nieuports so that was painted in Revell aluminium. As usual I applied many very thin coats over the linen areas and an undercoat of gloss black under the metal areas. 2 coats of aluminium gave the desired smooth effect. The numerals on the rudder were printed by me.

The undercarriage, rudder and upper pylon have to be added and then I can rig and complete this model.

Thanks for looking.

Stevef.

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Evening All,

After I had completed the painting I added the undercarriage. Following problems which I had with the first of the Nieuport II's I decided to use florists wire for the longitudinal undercarriage strut: this provided more stiffness and prevented the model from becoming a tail sitter. I also replaced the plastic rod with florists wire on the earlier model and correcteda mistake - there should only be a single spade on the longitudinal strut, and that should be at the rear:

The final details included adding the wheels, rudder, upper fuselage pylon and propellor. It was rigged with 40 SWG rolled copper wire attached with CA.

The other Nieuport II that I completed three weeks ago:

These are the two types: the different engines can be clearly seen:

Thanks for looking.

Stevef.