Wingnut Wings 1/32 Sopwith Pup

The Sopwith Pup (or Scout as it was supposed to be known as) was based on Sopwith Test Pilot Harry Hawker’s chalk outline of a single engine scout.  This later became known as Admiralty Type 9901 and eventually called the Pup by everyone except military bureaucrats because of it’s size compared to the Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter Observation Plane/Bomber.

The Pup was a light and maneuverable fighter armed with a single Vickers machine gun    but matched up well against the heavier and more heavily armed Albatros, Halberstadt and Fokker biplanes of the time and helped the Allies keep air superiority till the effects of vastly better Albatros DIIIs and German air tactics led to Bloody April 1917.  Pups served with the RNAS from Mid 1916 till early 1917 when they were replaced by the Sopwith Triplane and in the RFC from mid 1916 to Dec 1917 when Camels finally replaced the last active duty Pups which were used in home defense units to protect England against Gotha Bombers and Zeppelins.  Pups were used in training squadrons till the end of the war.

What is surprising to me is at the peak of its wartime service, the Pup only equipped a mere seven squadrons (four in the RNAS and three in the RFC.)

Due to its light weight, the Pup became the first ever carrier aircraft as the Royal Navy developed the means to fly planes off ships.  In 1917, Squadron Commander Edward Dunning became the first man to ever land on the deck of a moving ship, the HMS Furious and several days later became the first man killed in a carrier landing when his plane fell over the side during a landing attempt.

The Pup also served with the Americans, Greeks, Russians, Dutch, Romanians, Australians and notably with the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force, who promptly fell in love with its maneuverability.

Info from Wikipedia and the Wingnut Wings Instructions

Wingnut Wings has made quite a splash with their series of 1/32 WW1 kits.  These were designed to prove a decent level of detail and be easy to assemble (for WW1 planes) as  possible.  After opening the box, I’m sure that they accomplished their goals.

The kit has five grey plastic sprues, one clear plastic sprue and a fret of PE parts for the seatbelt and machine gun.  It includes two sets of fuselages:  one set for land based planes and the other for the carrier version as well as a Lewis Gun and angled mount for firing upwards through the upper wing.

Having see much 1/48 WW1 kits, I am amazed at the level of detail they show in the larger scale with the 1/32 Pup kit.  The wing detail is amazing and comes complete with mounting holes for rigging.  Some folks might balk at the overdone fabric effect on the fuselage, but I don’t see a problem with it.  The parts themselves only contain mold marks and no flash whatsoever.

What I also liked was the parts layout organization.  No frantic searching for parts on various sprues.

The decal sheet is very large and contains an ample number of stencils and the markings for all six Pups represented by this kit.  Among the markings include Squadron Commander Dunning’s plane.

The instruction booklet is probably the best instruction booklet I have ever gone through.  It is complete with several photos of the real thing and well done and accurate diagrams for pretty much everything you need for this kit.  It even shows the placement of the control wires if one so chooses to detail the cockpit and engine.

If you’re wondering why there aren’t many sprue shots, it is because when this package arrived, I suddenly morphed into a seven year old kid at Christmas and almost tore into it right on the spot.  Several pieces were removed at the time and it didn’t occur to me till later that I could have written a preview of the kit.  Oops.

I’m impressed with everything about this kit from the quality of the box art, parts and right to the instructions.  I normally don’t build 1/32 scale aircraft but I might do it for these various Wingnut Wings models.  It looks like Wingnut Wings’ owner Peter Jackson (yes the LOTR’s Peter Jackson) will get more of my money soon.

It is now a matter of building the kit to see if it looks as good in the box as it does to assemble.

If you’ve always wanted to build a WW1 plane then I’d strongly consider getting a Wingnut Wings kit.  I think they are worth the money.  I bought this kit when they had their free shipping introduction and kinda wish now that I had bought some more at the time.

If you want to purchase a Wingnuts kit then you will have to go to their website:

http://www.wingnutwings.com/ww/

Kit courtesy of my wallet (besides owning a set of the LOTR DVDs, I have no connection to Peter Jackson or Wingnut Wings.)