Part II - Bringing The Lafayette Escadrille to Life

As mentioned in the previous post, I am working on an easy project on a few Wings of Glory/War Lafayette Escadrille planes to bring them to a bit nicer look.

The first step to modify what will become the Haviland N.17 was to mix paints to match the Wings of War silver-doped color. Using six parts of Vallejo silver and five parts Vallejo natural steel, one can obtain a pretty close approximation. The painted over portion is a bit shinier than the rest of the plane, but this should not be an issue once I give the plane a coat of varnish.

Painted over the three red stripes on the rear fuselage, and have applied a white band

The second step was to use masking tape to paint a white fuselage band around the Nieuport. This was trickier than expected, simply because it was a challenge to hold the plane while trying to line up the tape. But, once I was able to get the two pieces in place, then I applied a coat of Vallejo white. A second coat was added, yielding this okay, but not great result. Good enough for the tabletop, but not for my OCD.

Band in place, three bars painted over

Then it was time to add the Sioux head decals to all the Nieuports. Using a little Vallejo decal fix, and soaking the Miscellaneous Miniatures decals in warm water, I was able to place the decals over the existing dull looking Seminole heads. This addition really brought some life to the Lafayette planes!

Touched up the rudder flashes a bit. Not perfect, but much better than they were initially. I then added coat of gloss varnish which was going to be followed by a coat of matte, but I like the look of the gloss enough to leave it as is. 

Complete!

The new decals are adding a splash of color

Not completely satisfied with the white fuselage band, but from three feet is works

And a video summarizing the project:

Mat - GripMats

Part I - Bringing The Lafayette Escadrille to Life

N.1844 with some bad decal placement. This will be the miniature used for a repaint.

I own three of the Wings of War Lafayette Escadrille Nieuport 17s - two marked with three red stripes on the fuselage side, and one with a "T" on the fuselage. According to Jon Guttman's SPA124 Lafayette Escadrille - American Volunteer Airmen in World War 1 (Osprey, 2004), the three red stripes on the first mentioned Nieuport are "coup marks," but in his Nieuport Flyers of the Lafayette (Albatros, 2006), the three stripes represent Captaine George Thenault's rank. Four different pilots flew N.1844 - Thenault, Lufbery, Hoskier, and Willis, so whether the personal markings represent coup marks of the Native American Indians or the captain's rank, one plane needs to be converted into a different N.17. As one of the models has the three stripes in an awkward position I will use that model for the "repaint."

Colors to be mixed for the repaint

I will be using Dom's Decals suggested mix of six parts Vallejo silver and five parts Vallejo natural steel to paint over the three stripes. Then I will add masking tape to paint a vertical white band around the fuselage to represent Willis Haviland's N.1887, which later became George Hinkle's plane with the addition of an "H" on the fuselage and red trim on the white band.

The rather dark and dull looking Seminole head will be replaced

On all three N.17s the Seminole head looks rather dull, the colors looking rather muted, almost black and white. I will be using decals from Miscellaneous Miniatures to add some color to the planes. While the decals represent the later Sioux motif, I think they will work nicely as Seminole heads and will enhance the plane's colors rather well.

The decals to be used. I have used some on Reduced Aircraft Factory color 103rd Aero SPAD S.VIIs to great effect. See THIS POST

I also need to fixe the rudder flashes on two of the N.17s as the red portion has a bit of decal missing. 

This is a rather easy project, or should be, with really only the masking and painting of the white fuselage band presenting the hardest aspect. I should be able to knock these out over the next couple of days, in time for some Bloody April fighting at the monthly Wright Flight gathering.

Mat - GripMats

A Revisit to the Basing Solution

My constant search for an ideal (for me) flight stand for Check Your 6! might be finally at an end.  My parameters, and hence my issue in finding the type of stand I desired was that I wanted something that visually indicates TAL on the playing surface, that isn't too tall and prone to knock overs, and that doesn't cause polarity issues with the magnets I have on my miniatures. Let me summarize my issues with existing base configurations:

• Official Check Your 6! bases - Do not visually indicate a plane's current TAL. Dial numbers are small, and the dials can be very tight or very loose. This causes players to constantly ask about altitude on enemy aircraft and is not visually appealing.
• Litko - Using the dice trays, one can make it a tad easier for players to see current speed and TAL, but again having a peg fixed to the base means the visually aspect of differing TALs are lost. 
• Antennas - Can be costly, and the ones I have found are far too large. Ideally this would be a great solution but I would need antennas that only extend an inch or so per segment as I do not want planes towering over the table top, making them susceptible to knock overs.

I had been looking at the flight stands from the Dockfighters: The Ale Wars as I like the fact that the system uses peg pieces in two sizes to indicate altitude, utilizing magnets to connect the pegs in combination to represent varying TALs. Smaller pieces can represent a single TAL, while the larger pieces can represent two TALs. I was worried that would cause polarity problems since my miniatures have magnets that do not all follow the same pole so I had held off on buying any until Bernhard at Sieben Schwaben Spiele Decals suggested I give them a try.

Image from Woodpecker Games site

The Dockfighters flight stands offers other very positive aspects - they have a moveable dial that one can use for speed (up to twelve), and have a series of colored rings that can be used for either aircrew quality or to make it easier to keep track of each plane (I usually have a player run two planes). One other possibility - since the peg pieces can be combined, one could represent multiple CABs, but I would not recommend this as the plane becomes wobbly and subject to knock overs. And, very important to my needs, the magnets in the Dockfighters peg pieces are round balls that adjust to the polarity of the next piece or the plane, solving my polarity issue.

An ace Me 110 (indicated by the red ring on the base), Speed 3 and TAL 2, chased down by a veteran (blue ring) Swiss Me 109 at Speed 4 and TAL 3

A consideration for those thinking about this basing system - larger metal miniatures, such as bombers, wobble a bit as well. My solution for this, as a four-engine metal bomber even has issues on an official CY6! stand, is to go to 3D printed miniatures for larger aircraft. They are much lighter and and hence work with both systems very well.

A bit of a video showing the flight stands: 

Price came out to be $72.00 USD, which included shipping from Deutschland. That comes out to be $3.60 or so per stand. The official CY6! stands are $32.50 (including shipping) from I-94, or $5.42 per flight stand.

I will be hosting a game soon, and will be using the Dockfighters flight stands in lieu of my official bases. If things work out, this means I will have a crap ton of stands for sale!

Mat - Hotz Mats