The Little World

The Revell box art for the Nieuport 17C does not match the colour call-out. Which is correct? M. Google, please step forward…

And he advances magnificently. On the Wikipedia site, the entry for the Nieuport 17 shows a premier image of a 17 sitting quietly in a field. There are no other aircraft seen, and the field doesn’t seem ploughed up by either tyres or shells – perhaps it was taken early in the war.

The magnificent part is the fact that it is a Lumière Frères Autochrome. One of the first commercially-possible colour processes. It was available to professionals and wealthy amateurs. The basic idea was a light-sensitive glass plate with dyed starch grains that eventually produced a colour transparency with many of the hues of the original scene captured.

If it was there at the time and the Lumières shot it, it is authentic enough for me. Silver it is, with the colours of the decals to spice it up. Let us hope that very old Revell sheet has not died in the closet, as it were.