An odd one here, as reader Brian Berke sent me some images in relation to a post, a while ago, and I can't find the post, or whether I posted one of the images, since when I grabbed a few from Adrian's rummage tray, and as a result a post with 50/50 Brain's and my images!
Brian's group, with what I hope is a
Sopwith Camel, if not it's probably a
Spad? Brain was wondering if they were
Johillco (
John Hill & Co.), which they were, or are! And we have a pilot in leather overcoat, a rigger (in blue greatcoat) and a mechanic with a spanner, a rather large spanner, more suited to the bolts on a sub-soiling plough - I was going to say, sarcastically (having worked the bleeder, with two extension poles!), before realising that propellers and the drive-shaft behind them would probably have huge nuts - fnaar-fnaar!
Brian's above mine below, all marked
COPYR for copyright, across the shoulders. The base colour is a known variant, and Joplin doesn't state it, but I suspect the green bases are earlier, the uniform-matching colour later, as a cost measure? And if you think my mechanic is looking thinner than Brian's . . .
. . . it's because he is! If I'm right about the bases, then we can further deduce/assume, there was a re-jig/re-sculpt of the mechanic toward the end of the run? He could be a copy, of course? Those hollow-cast chaps did a lot of plagiarism! As well as a thinner head, he's looking forwards while the [earlier?] figure is looking up and to the left - toward 'his' pilot?
Many thanks to Brian for kicking this one off!
2 comments:
Definitely a Sopwith Camel. You see the 'hump' over the breeches of the machine guns.
The markings seem to be those of B6299 flown by Flight Lieutenant Norman McGregor of 10 Naval Squadron RNAS in September 1917 when he shot down the first Fokker Dr1 of the war.
Thank you Arthur! That's more than I might have expected! Fond memories of reading Biggles' books and failing to get an SE5's wings to look even slightly 'right'!
H
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