FokkerAce

I just love pictures like this

'Fritz und Gunther wishing/anticipating their mount getting finished.......Brrrummmm,brummm....Ratttatatatt.'

FA[8D]

Sethhunter

Well Fritz and Gunther have some color in their faces! Actually the ship is just about done. Even with the wing moved back .75" it's tail heavy. Need to add 2 lbs to the nose. After that it will weigh 23 lbs. A bit heavier than I hoped, but adding the reinforcement/hardware for the flying rudder didn't help (although it looks cool!). Fuji 43 up front with Bisson muffler, 3 battery packs (smoke/ignition/radio). Rcats electronic switch + manual switch on the ignition. Two bomb releases. TME smoke pump. Made the parabellum gun by modifying a WB Spandau. The 1/4 scale pilots and guns look a little big in the smaller scale airframe - something other builders might want to think about, but as I've said, I'm not too particular about the details on this model. Wing loading is about 36 oz/sq-ft. I love that smirk on the aces-of-iron guy in back - I knew immediately he had to be the gunner (though I've never seen a hat like that). Including the extra work making the engine, painting the pilots and airplane, adding flying rudder and other bits, tallied about 200 hours - not all that unreasonable for a scratch built. I'll let you know how it flies!

kakem

Great looking plane. Rest easy on the gunner's helmet, it was the standard issue flight helmet for the Germans. Here is Herman Goering sporting one, as well as a shot of a gunner:

Sethhunter

Thanks very much Kakem - your pictures are great. Do you know if the bulkiness in the helmet was padding to reduce chance of head injury?

kakem

Yes, the bumpers are padded with horse hair or other shock reducing material. This was the early crash helmet. The leftover helmets were painted black and issued to the motorcycle troops in WW2.

abufletcher

Sweet looking model. [sm=thumbs_up.gif]

jumpinjan

Yeah, the pilots are about 3x the size, and the Germans didn't use brown camo after 1917, but heck, I would love to own it!

k3 valley flyer

My Feedback: (18)

Your plane looks great! The engine and guns are fantastic. I like your pilots also. Keep us posted on how it flies, a good friend of mine has done all my take offs and landings, he is a much better pilot than me. He says keep up some speed and a nice steady angle of attack to land, like most warbirds. Once in the air she flies good, he does loops and rolls with it. I just make circuits with it. Waiting for winter to end so can take it out again.

jumpinjan

Here is a correctly camo'd Junkers D.I. The CL.I is very similar (probably identical in the use of the colors). This is a 1/48 plastic model that is very well made and about the first model that I have ever seen that applied the recent research published on the Junkers aircraft. My 1/4 scale model will look identical to this plastic model.

Sethhunter

Quick update on the flying qualities of this plane:
With the 2lbs of nose weight, the plane felt nose heavy to me. I cut it back to 1 lbs. If anything, it's a tad tail heavy but I prefer the feel that way. Note I built the wing .75" farther aft than the plans called for - If I were to build it again, I'd put the wing 1" back and add .5" to the nose, and build as light as I can. The construction is really durable but arguably overly strong/heavy. Ailerons were not very responsive until I really cranked the throw up. The flying rudder really commands the plane and is essential to coordinate turns. Elevator sensitivity is good. Plane is not very fast - about the same airspeed as several BalsaUSA Nieports and Tripes running the same FUJI 43. Brand new, my FUJI 43 swinging a 20x8 had barely enough power to fly the plane. Very scale flight characteristics (i.e., poor climb!). Now that the 43 is breaking in, the "ponys are coming on" and the plane is less marginal. She floats off the ground on her own but needs a good run after breaking ground for airspeed to build before trying to climb. I may try a 20x10 prop. As you would expect, she comes down with authority when the power is off. So keep the power on and it settles in nicely. The landing gear is very bouncy with those rubber bands. I will probably change over to a rigid spreader bar and more conventional elastics on each side. Those funky twisted ailerons work well to eliminate tip stall. She has no bad habbits. In fact, today I took off with an overly lean engine; just as I approached a tree line over some corn, the engine gurgled and lost LOTS of power. I managed to hang on the prop, skirting the trees, trimmed some corn and got back to the field. It bucked and wallowed but never gave up flying! Really a forgiving plane.

It's a nice plane to add a little variety to any WWI funfly.

foodstick

Looks like this will be Balsa USA's newest 1/4 scale kit...