It's just time! Time for me finally to build that Fokker Dr.I that I dreamed of building when I was 12 years old. Way back then, I had managed to acquired a set of the Joseph Nieto drawings from the Smithsonian and had studied them with near religious fervor. In the summer of 1968 I convinced my best friend that we should build a “large” exact replica and I had drawn up some enlarged plans of the fuselage by hand. In the cool of his dad's garage on a hot Southern Cal day we dreamed out loud and imagined. But the project ended before it started when we realized we didn't have more than a couple of bucks between us.

Fast forward 40 years. I still have those Nieto drawings, now yellow with age. I've looked at them often over the years and when I started RC flying and building about four years ago, I thought single-mindedly about building and flying a triplane - maybe as that third or fourth model. I started off with a Fokker EIII. And then got involved with a Nieuport 11, that I never ended up finishing but learned a lot from, and then a Flair Legionnaire, which I did finish, but haven't yet maidened. And about that time I got an offer from Chris at CD ScaleDesigns to build a prototype of his Sopwith Snipe kit. And that has been an adventure that's occupied me for the last two years. Now the Snipe is finished and awaits a few final details and its maiden flight. And then, just for good measure, there was the quickie built of a Flair Puppeteer, whose maiden flight last week was also my maiden flight as a biplane pilot. So it's time. Time to finally build that most emblematic of all WWI aircraft.

It just sort of happened. You know what they say about idle hands. I saw Les' thread about his superb little DVII with its stunning dowel fuselage - and that got me thinking. I scanned, enlarged, and printed out the side views of the Nieto plans, bought some 3mm bamboo doweling and started in. A day later I had the foundations of the fuselage. Then other things started to fall in place. I have a perfect size aluminum cowl (acquired during the EIII project) complete with the so-called “Fokker groove.” And I have a couple WB 1/6 scale Spandau kits. And a set of 5” WB wheels with the white tires. I also have the Squadron publication on the Dr.I as well as Achim Engel's Dr.I in Detail e-book.

So, it's time.