Well, you can see it by yourself. Reality can by stranger than imagination. The pioneering work of British Horatio Philips left many contributions to science and a great deal of machines that, after a convoluted and complex path, ended up influencing contemporary art. Among those -reputedly- flying machines, the multiplane (20-plane, to be precise) of 1904 is the subject of this modeling endeavor.

Click on images below to see larger images

Basically a simple machine to model, the multiplane doesn't require too much effort until you arrive to the "multi" part of multi-plane. The fuselage - a mere beam- was built with its front part already finished and the tail parts left temporarily aside until completion of the "multi" part, in order to be slided in position, secured, and then the remaining bits added.
  I used a jig to align the "multis", which required an even spacing, although the evenness wasn't totally achieved, I'm afraid. May be in the next one the venetian wing will look better. I first laid down the struts that go on one side, then glued the narrow wings and secured them gluing the remaining struts on top. Once the glue had set, I removed the "wing" from the jig and snipped the excess length of the struts.    

Besides styrene, a few metal pieces were used in construction. Paint is mostly acrylic with a few enamel touches. Notice that the original surfaces were not canvas, but covered with calico paper, thus supposedly being darker and in a different hue than your usual natural, doped linen plane.
The tires were made of coiled solder, cut to size, and photo-etched spokes added. This thing has three wheels, so plan ahead when getting them. Given the size of the model, no rigging whatsoever was intended here. I would really be ashame about that if I would have any remaining shame.

I could find just one image of the plane, which differed from the plan I got, so I went along with the photo and, as usual, some details were blurry or can not not be seen at all. Anyway, at least a nice-to-look-at model flies in the skies of imagination as the original would have liked to.
Now, should I grow a mustache and use a bowler hat?

Gabriel

Click on images below to see larger images