The Little World

There only seem to be two types of WW1 aircraft – the impossibly sleek and the improbably bulky.

This Albatros fits the first category, as would Pfalz and Roland machines. The second type is represented in my mind by the Bristol fighters and the Russian bombers. Brought about by different design bureaux comprised of different minds with different graphic tendencies.

You really appreciate the lines if you have been building one of the competing nation’s efforts recently – the Nieuport 17 was the last WW1 type through the shop. The trick is to switch your mind rapidly between the aesthetic of one so that you can appreciate that of the other.

Of course that appearance depends so much upon the colouration and pattern that you can be led far astray at a glance…perhaps that was what the airplane riggers intended. Authentic can be startling, but doesn’t necessarily end up being pleasant.

Pray for the Albatros.