Landships II

Great especially all those drawings. I like the armoured draisine with the twin Mg turrets.

I have a question sort of relating to armoured trains. The Czech Legion aquired some American LWF biplanes to support their troops on the Trans Siberian Rly - scouting ahead of trains etc. one hangs in a museum in Prague having been evacuated via Vladivostock. I have a resin kit ready to go. However the plane in Prague has Markings identical to US HOME service markings of 1917. Are these the same as those used by the Czech legion or something added over the ages by an enthusiastic museum restorer?

My friend Buz Pezold from WWI models mailing List wrote this:

" In the book "Aircraft of the Russian Civil War 1917-1921" there is a
color profile of a LWF ("WIlson-Sturtevant") assigned to the Czech Legion
Air-School in Siberia, Kurgan, autumn 1919. The scheme of this aircraft is
much like you descibed in the Prague Museum and the Omega kit. The wings
are CDL, wood-grain fuselage with "3 MASAR:YK" on it in black, US Star with
"red dot" center on the top wing (upper surfaces) and bottom wing (under
surfaces), and tri-color fin. There is also a photograph of a LWF in the
book. Photo is taken at starboard-quarter profile of the aircraft with 5
men standing in front of the fuselage. The caption of the photo reads: "One
of the Siberian trophies of the Red Army - American aircraft LWF Model 5,
nicknamed in Russia "Wilson-Sturtevant". Photo taken in the 1920's". I
haven't really studied the photo, but the LWF initially looks like it could
be aluminum painted/doped. But looking closer it could be CDL(?) wings and
wood-grain(?) fuselage. There are no discernable markings on this aircraft
except on the fuselage, and the men standing in front of the fuselage are
blocking the view. What I can make out is a letter in black that looks like
an upside down "U". It looks more like Hebrew to me than Russian (I don't
know either of them). There is a faint letter just to the left of the
upside down "U" and that letter looks like the Greek letter "omega". I hope
this helps."

G.

Thanks GrzeM. Fuselage would be wood grain as LWF stood for Laminated Wood Fuselage for though the aircraft as a whole was less sophisticated than a Curtiss Jenny it did have a very advanced monocoque fuselage.

Howdy GrzeM,

Thx for the links Ths first one I haven't seen, and is very useful indeed. The second trainsite you provided I am aware of and have referred to it repeatedly...I just wish there were more like it!

Tread.

Even more info from Radek!!!

"You aroused some interest in the subject in me, so I
stopped over at a library to see the 1993 L+K
magazine. I learnt the Czech LWF's were initially
flown in their original US markings. The lower wing
roundels were overpainted yellow on the first
assembled machine and replaced with a huge inscription
saying T.G.MASARYK. The plane crashed and was
completely destroyed during its first flight on March
7, 1919, though. Another machine was called
"Bolshevik" because it sported red sections on the
wings in addition to the roundels. The reason
allegedly was that this had been a firefighting
machine. The word Masaryk was later painted on the
fuselage sides of another machine. When the unit
transfered to Nikolsk-Ussurijsk on September 15, 1919,
the roundels were overpainted with red and white bands
looking pretty much like Polish flags, with thin blue
lining. The tricolours on the rudder were overpainted
in red and white only. The machines remained like this
for the rest of their careers. Some of them were then
disassembled and taken to Czechoslovakia on a ship. A
single aircraft was then restored as a museum exhibit.
All photographs taken after restoration show the same
marking: US roundels on wings and a red-white rudder.
To me this seems to be mixed marking, which retains
the overpainted rudder, but switches back to the
original wing appearance. Possibly the restorers only
restored the original camo on the wings and didn't
care about the rudder, or they used a spare set of
wings that had never been overpainted. Or I'm getting
it all wrong.

Incidentally, the entire purchase was a major screwup.
The officer sent to the US to buy aircraft for the
legions was not an airman, and he made a complete
idiot of himself. The Americans used the opportunity
to get rid of some useless machines. When the delivery
arrived to Siberia, it was accompanied by two US
officers, who expressed some skepticism about their
airworthiness. The Czechs got the officers stone drunk
and searched their baggage. They found documents
showing the planes had been withdrawn from various
flying schools as worthless and were resold instead of
being trashed. It was a miracle some of them could be
convinced to fly.

A question remains what is this:
http://www.hannants.co.uk/search/?FULL=COM7211

It fits the verbal description of an overpainted
machine, only the L+K drawing shows the red and white
bands going straight accross the wings, and one of the
blurry photographs seems to confirm this.

Anybody knows if there is a 1:72 decal option for the
"3 Masaryk" aircraft? It's really cool, sort of
incorporates the spirit of the day."

Cheers!
G.