Siemens Schuckert D.III  8346/17 

'The Riderless Horse’

The Siemens Schuckert Werke D.III type fighter was the marriage of several great ideas. First the “monococque” fuselage was a wooden frame with 3mm plywood panels as a skin. The rudder, elevators and wings were fabric covered and conventionally built. with ailerons in both upper and lower wings. The motor was the Siemens-Halske Sh III 160 hp, 11 cylinder  counter rotary motor. The motor turned in whole one direction while gearing allowed the four-bladed propeller to turn in the opposing direction. Rather than a standard rotary that turned motor and propeller in one direction at 1400 rpms, the counter rotary turned 700 rpms and the prop turned 700 rpms. This counteracted the torque inherent in the standard rotary and the motor‘s life span was increased. Later a modified version, the Sh IIIa put out 200 hp. Highly maneuverable and a fast climbing machine it became ideal for Home Defence units known as KEST ( Kampfeinsitzer staffeln.)   Some examples  were flown by front line pilots like Oblt. Ernst Udet and Ltn. Alfred Lenz successfully.

This is the Eduard 1^st issue kit (#8001.) built to represent an early production machine. The kit did not provide the rigging material so I used monofilament. The cross decals are from the old Microscale sheet of German national markings.  I prefer Eagle Strike 5 colour lozenge decals for fabric covered areas except the modified rudder.  Balances were either reduced or removed from the flying surfaces.  An early production version of the full cowling was made from altering a Testor’s/Hawk Nieuport 17 cowling kit item.  Since this was a relatively ‘new machine’ when photographed in 1918, the weathering was kept to a minimum.  Simply a tonal variation in the fuselage colours was sufficient for me.  The figure is a ‘modified’ Jaguar pilot figure from their WWII Italian set.