The kit was created using the Albatros Productions Datafile on the Roland D.VI so it comes as no surprise that the parts match Ian Stair’s plans precisely.

Fuselage

The construction of the Roland was done using the “clinker” boat building technique. This involved the overlapping of one blank of spruce over the next with a tapering of the mating surface. One would have expected this to have been replicated by scribed panel lines but amazingly Blue Max have taken the trouble to reproduce this effect. Nice work.

The moulding is first class with all detail being crisp and sharp. Part of the interior structure has been represented with no resultant sinking on the opposite side of the fuselage. The same applies to the forward shelf, which is provided to allow the correct height of the engine to be maintained.

Wings

The upper wing is a one-piece affair and displays very good detail and thin trailing edges. The ailerons are separate to allow the builder to animate these items, which is a nice touch.

By necessity, the lower wings are moulded separately and it is highly recommended that some form of pinning be used to give the attachment to the fuselage keel some strength. The surface detail is very nice with some finely represented ribs. It’s good to see that the injection of these parts has been done from the fuselage attachment points. This saves any detail being lost during the cleaning up process.

On my example the lower wing trailing edges near the wing tips were quite a bit thicker than the rest of the part. Some light sanding from below will easily fix this. The resulting loss of rib detail is not a problem here, as the wings will be covered in lozenge decal. Thus the application of ribs tapes will reinstate the required look.

Other plastic parts include the fin/rudder, tailskid, exhaust, floor, lower engine and axle fairing.
Blue Max also supply both balanced and unbalanced elevators as not all D.VIb aircraft were fitted with the balanced version.

Pewter

A small bag contains the white metal parts and these are very well cast. The cockpit area is enhanced with bulkheads, seat, rudder bar, and control column. The top part of the engine is also done in this medium as is the wheels, radiator water pipe, struts and prop/spinner. Sadly this latter item is not in the desired two pieces.

All struts and under carriage legs have been delicately cast and are in perfect scale. As a result, the parts are easily bent and some may choose to scratch build or modify alternatives. I have used similar white metal struts in the past from Blue Max and careful assembly shows that they do work well.

Two options are provided on a superbly printed decal sheet. These decals are hand printed resulting in very thin carrier film. Despite being delicate, experience has shown there to be no problem with their application.

They are in perfect register and previous sheets have revealed that no decal softening agents are necessary.

Thoughtful additions on the sheet are instrument dials and the prominent Roland logo. Great!

No lozenge is supplied but this can be purchased separately from a number of sources, including Pegasus.
The options are:

Roland D.VIb, D.22254/18, 1918

This is quite a notable machine as it was entered in the Second Fighter Competition. It was also the only fighter aircraft there that was powered by the over-compressed 185hp Benz Bz.IIIav engine.

The machine wears a shield on the side of the fuselage. Photos of this aircraft show what looks to be a shadow thrown diagonally across this item but closer inspection shows this not to be the case. The background of the shield was definitely painted in two different colours.

Amazingly, parts of the fuselage of D.22254/18 actually survived the war and reside in a restored state in a museum in Poland. Sadly the shield marking had long since vanished.

Other photos show that the unbalanced elevators were used, while Blue Max have the balanced version fitted in the instruction sheet. Also note that the tail plane and elevators have had their lozenge painted over in a colour that appears very dark in the Datafile photos. The instructions show this as unpainted.

Roland D.VIb (sic), Jasta 23b,

The depicted machine is actually a D.VIa and was fitted with the 160hp Mercedes D.III engine and not the D.VIb’s Bz.IIIa engine. As a result there should be a couple of extra ventilation panels on the starboard side near the nose of the aircraft. It is not a major effort to add these disk shaped details. Just copy the smaller of the two versions already present in the kit.
The aforementioned Datafile has a cover painting of this aircraft with the same error.

The kit supplies the larger balanced ailerons of the D.VIb but a few swipes of the sanding stick will transform these to the necessary smaller D.VIa type for this example.

The aircraft has been photographed with both black and white wheel covers. A photo before capture shows the wheel cover to be white while the ones taken when being tested by the US Air Service show them as black. The black was probably painted on at the same time as the white fuselage disc, which was also not present on the earlier “wartime” pic.

Blue Max have come to the rescue of Roland fans with a very good kit of a fighter that is unlikely to be released by any of the main stream manufacturers.

The plastic and metals parts are very good and faithfully capture the sleek lines of this neglected fighter.
The confusion with the marking options is easily remedied and shouldn’t deter fellow Roland lovers from adding this kit to their collection.

Stay tuned for a build of this kit in the coming weeks.

Recommended
 

Thanks to Squadron.com for the review sample.