1/72 Montcalm Faucon

[Brian da Basher]

After successfully gaining their independence from Great Britain in 1791, the Republic of Quebec enjoyed over 135 years of prosperity and freedom, having good relations with the United States to the south and the remaining British Dominion of Canada to the west.

The armed forces of Quebec were very professional, although often they had obsolete equipment due to the fact there were no real threats to their security. The Republic of Quebec allied with France in W.W. I and that conflict helped quicken the pace of technological change. Still, the Armee d'l'Air du Quebec found itself armed with mostly surplus W.W. I types as the year 1928 dawned and a new threat appeared on the horizon and right across the border.

It was in the spring of that year when a rambunctious outlaw called Captain Canada (whose real name to this day is unknown) and his Sarnian Savages started cross-border raids that greatly disturbed the citizens, government, and military of Quebec.

The Armee d'l'Air du Quebec attempted to stop these raids with co-ordinated attacks, but the Sarnian Savages, newly-armed with PW-1 pursuits stolen from a Michigan Air Corps reserve unit were able to blunt any attempt to stop them.

A solution was needed, and fast.

Continued...

1st of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

Fortunately for the citizens of Quebec, the firm of Montcalm Aero came up with a solution. Montcalm Aero had begun by license-producing the venerable SPAD XVII and had ventured into refurbishing those SPADs by replacing their wooden framework with modern duraluminum tube. Then, when the crisis hit, the Montcalm Aero Co. decided to try mating those duraluminum airframes to a new engine, the Voyaguer 9 cyllinder radial which boosted performance enormously. The addition of a beautifully streamlined pair of spats was icing on the cake.

The new aircraft, christened the Faucon, was rushed into production and was finally able to take on Captain Canada and his Savage Sarnians in the air. The Sarnian bandits had no choice but to cease their cross border raids and turn their attention to easier prey in Saskatchewan. The last anyone heard of Captain Canada, he had retreated to an undisclosed location muttering, "Those doggoned tuque-wearing Quebecers and their spats!!!!

The Faucon shown here, No. 15 can be seen today at the Musée d'Avion in Montreal.

2nd of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

This is the last of three models I built while I was on vacation. The base kit was the venerable 1/72 Revell SPAD XIII. This was another vintage beauty I picked up off philp a while back. This kit is an absolute gem to build despite its age. I only needed to figure out how I was going to modify it. I knew I was going to be adding spats but I wasn't sure what else to do. Then I found an engine and prop leftover from a Matchbox Brewster Buffalo in my spares box. The prop had lost a blade, but it was easy to change it into a two-bladed prop with a little cutting and glueing. The Buffalo's engine was a perfect fit to the SPAD's fuselage. I took the precaution of adding a blanking plate just in case any daylight peeked between the engine cyllinders. I also decided to put a seat in the cockpit as the kit came with a poorly molded upper half of a pilot to fill the space.

3rd of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

The spats were scratched from four pieces of sheet plastic cut to shape and glued around half a wheel. I also replaced the tailskid with a tailwheel from my spares box and scratched a windscreen from clear plastic. I used .011 steel guitar strings attached with white glue for the rigging. The only thing I had to figure out next was a paint scheme and markings.

4th of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

I had this lovely sheet of custom made roundels our Group Build Commisar Anthony was kind enough to print up and send to me. They were originally designed for a fictional Caribbean country called St. Amand but I like them as alternate markings for the fictional Armee d'l'Air du Quebec. Once I knew what markings I wanted deciding on a paint scheme was easy. I've got a nice bottle of Polly Scale French Beige which is an excellent color for clear doped linen. It's got a bit of a yellow tint to it which sets off the blue and red Quebec markings nicely. I decided to use Tamiya Buff to paint the metal parts of the airframe and the spats. The engine cyllinders were painted with Tamiya Gunmental with a little Model Masters Steel drybrushed over it and the struts were done with Model Masters Rust.

5th of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

I had a blast building this model over my vacation. Nothing relaxes me like knocking together a few What-Ifs! I hope you enjoyed looking at it along with my silly little tongue-in-cheek story about that imfamous fictitious Sarnian bandit.

Last of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Chap]

Absolutely beautiful work Brian! Great job all around, I especially like the paint scheme.

~Steve

[Allan]

Brian

Whaddaya meeeen silly little AH???

It's all so bloody believable!!!!

and the model is a true gem!!!!!!

actually I cut my modelling teeth on those Revell WW1 models  just loved them

Allan in Canberra

[cthulhu77]

Spat-tastic, beyond a doubt!

[noxioux]

WWI must be in everybody's blood these days. . .

That looks great, especially for something so tiny!  I took it for 1/144 at first.

[dogsbody]

Geez !  You could have, at the least, used a Canadian penny.

[McGreig]

Lovely little model.    I really like the way that you get a very different appearance with relatively small modifications    

[BlackOps]

Brian I don't know how your knocking all these great builds out so fast but whatever your doing don't stop!    

[Captain Canada]

Geez !  You could have, at the least, used a Canadian penny.

He would have, but at 1.4 cents USD, he couldn't afford it !

 

[Captain Canada]

raids that greatly disturbed the citizens, government, and military of Quebec.

Not true....not true at all. A careful check of your referances would find that these roving marauders carried so much beer with them that the enemy glady sat down and drank themselves into oblivion !