Some More Nieuport Niews

Following my previous post on Nieuports in New Zealand, I contacted Ian Sowman of Napier who built this Circa Reproductions Nieuport 11 ZK-WWI, which I think completes the Nieuport replicas in New Zealand. Thanks to Ian for the photo. As you can see, this Nieuport is different from the others as it is wearing a German colour scheme. This is because it is actually a replica of a Siemens-Schuckert D 1b, which was a German copy of a captured Nieuport. The original D 1b differed from the Nieuport in having the top wing set around 100mm lower, and having strengthened centre struts. The original also featured a Siemens-Halske 7 cylinder rotary engine that drove the propellor in the opposite direction of rotation through a gearbox that eliminated torque reaction. Ian's aircraft is powered by a Rotax 503. The colour scheme is modelled after a scheme worn by a similar replica in the USA that is part of the Kansas City Dawn Patrol (but that is another story).

And due to some factual inexactitudes in my previous post, I post the following corrections:

This is ZK-NIE (1)

This is ZK-JOZ

And this is ZK-NIE (2)

Thanks to Flyernzl for sorting this out.