Mosca MBbis

Before the war, Italian Francesco E. Mosca worked in Russia at the Dux plant.  When war broke out, he formed his own small aircraft company building Farman IVs.  Working with his partner Bystritsky, he designed a two-seater with folding wings for transport, the Mosca MB.  A one-seat version, the MBbis, followed, of which about fifty were built.  They served not only during the war but frequently in the civil war that followed.  The MBbis was not equipped with a synchronizer; instead a Colt or Lewis machine gun was mounted to fire at a steep angle over the propeller or deflector plates were mounted for firing through the propeller.

This model comes in both 1:144 and 1:285/6mm/1:288 scales.  The 1:144 model features an upward-firing Lewis gun.  The 1:285 product includes three aeroplanes with propeller disks and forward-firing Colt machine guns.  They are joined by sprues to keep the cost down.  You will have to carefully remove the sprues with snippers or nail cutters.

DESIGNER NOTE:  Models at scales smaller than 1:144 may no longer be available.  Shapeways discontinued the material for which they were designed, and the newer materials require that each and every model be adjusted to thicken surfaces like wings.  If you are interested in a particular model in a small scale, please let me know and I will prioritize it higher in the queue.

For more details and gaming information, see https://linen.miraheze.org/wiki/Mosca_MBbis