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Old 10-03-2011, 09:38 AM
Leif Ohlsson's Avatar
Leif Ohlsson Leif Ohlsson is offline
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Don, the 1/16 Nieuport is a simple enlarging of a 1/48 kit, rearranging the parts to fit on common A4 or Letter papers. You could try it if you are prepared to do a whole lot of work on your own (which clearly you are, and possibly like as well), but it would not be representative of the real top quality paper models available.

For top design quality I think you will still have to go to printed models, preferably from Poland or other parts of the previous East Europe. (This may rapidly change; downloading of course makes so much more sense for paper models.)

For some reason, no doubt having something to do with being isolated from relatively cheap plastic models during the early Cold War period, paper modeling reached very high levels of design complexity in Eastern Europe, Poland in particular, even before the advent of computer design.

Today, you should not buy anything not based on computer design, if you want superior fit, level of detail, and graphics. I think it is safe to say that the Polish company Halinski is regarded as absolutely top of the line, if you include all those aspects. They have a number of WWII aircraft, all of them in 1/33 scale, but no WWI aircraft.

For that I would recommend you to have a look at other Polish companies, such as Modelik, Orlik, Kartonowa Kolekcja, GPM or WAK. I believe the Orlik SE5-A is a superior example of a highly detailed WWI aircraft kit (with a complete inner structure, enabling you to build a partly see-through model), in close competition with models like the Modelik Avia BH-5 (mid-war light aircraft; have a look here for my working over of that kit in 1/16), the KK Po-2 (Russian WWII biplane; original sold out, but see here for my working over of that kit in 1/16), or the GPM Friedrichshafen, plus many, many others as you will soon find out if you follow this scene for a while.

As you see, I absolutely believe the fabulous quality of these paper model aircraft designs merit enlarging them to 1/16; in fact I think they very much deserve it.

Leif
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