RE: SR Eindecker
 

LOL I agree! :D

RE: SR Eindecker
 

I just figured that getting shot at makes you older faster.

RE: SR Eindecker
 

BTW - Age issues aside, I think the Aces of Iron pilots are exceptionally well done. Nothing else even comparable on the market that I've seen.

I wanted to use Spike, but the person I'm building the eindecker for wouldn't go for that. In retrospect, he made the right choice.

RE: SR Eindecker
 

The only thing comparible (and in some regards better) are the full-figure Elite Forces "dolls." I used (in somewhat modified form) the Luftwaffe pilot in my 1/6 scale EIII. This size would work just as well in a 1/5 scale model. To use the whole doll would be too heavy though so I only used the head, gloved hands, and boots and replace the body with a wire and cotton doll frame from the crafts store. I also put the receiver battery in the pilots chest and ran the wires out his sleeve. I read of one guy here on RCU ("Luke" aka "dionesiosbacchus") who disassembled the doll and vacuformed each piece then reassembled the vacuformed parts into an extremely lightweight full-figure (not in the Jane Russell sense :D ) pilot.

The Aces of Iron pilots do indeed have far more molded-in details than another other available pilot bust. But they are distinctly cartoonish in nature -- not silly cartoonish but not intended to be particularly realistic. In some sense they are "sport scale" human beings. :D

Actually, I'm thinking of buying one for one of my current projects and having my 19 year old daughter paint it for me.

RE: SR Eindecker
 

And here he is (yet again) in the air. I think he looks pretty darn realistic!

RE: SR Eindecker
 

BTW, here's a photo of an honest to god WWI German pilot.

RE: SR Eindecker
 

Thanks. Lots of research at the British Flying Museum in Hendon. N5182 has some history to it. It was a labor of love.
It started as a BUSA kit and evolved as I learned more about this particular aircraft.

RE: SR Eindecker
 

Getting back to Eindeckers, Do any of you know anyone who has expierience flying one with wing warping? If I were to do one with wimg warping it would have to be 1/4 scale and I would probably scratch build it. The Sr eindecker is great for sport scale but not practical for converting to scale in my opinion.
I remember reading a book by Frank Tallman entitled Flying the Old Pkanes and he flies a reproduction eindecker with wing warping and an 80 hp LeRone. He said that he got the impression that if he let go of the stick or rudder bar the plane would turn itself inside out! AS for the wing warping he said that the warp was extremly stiff on the wings but slight pressure and almost no apparent movement of the stick is enough to drop a wing in normal turn. what I found really interesting was when he got it up to altitude and level you want to get both hands on the stick for as you pick up speed it gets very sensitive fore and aft, and you have some difficulty not PORPOISING! His very words and I found I had the same problem with my Sr eindecker with full flying elevator.

RE: SR Eindecker
 

LOL :D Have you now? It can also make you dead. ;)

RE: SR Eindecker
 

Yes I agree. Very nice. :)

RE: SR Eindecker
 

Here are a couple of my SR in flight that people might not have noticed from a previous post of just a link.

http://www.pfarrout.com/images/HansFlying.jpg

http://www.pfarrout.com/images/hansoverthemoon.jpg

http://www.pfarrout.com/images/ChasingAirbus.jpg

RE: SR Eindecker
 

Does anyone know how the movement of the wing was accomplished on the original Fok.E type?? IS it merely by the flex of the rear spar... or was the rear spar hinged at the fuse?

RE: SR Eindecker
 

The secret is just to have a flimsy wing! :D There are two basic types of rigging wires on the E types (and all wing-warpers for that matter): 1) fixed static wires and 2) moving wires. The forward sets of wires (attached to the forward spar) on the Fokker Es (and I'll assume on the Pflaz) are static wires, "landing wires" on the top to keep the wings from collapsing downward on landing and "flying wires" on the bottom to keep them from folding up in flight. The rear cables are part of the wing-warping system and operate on two closed loops which start and end on the control lever on the undercarriage and pass through a set of double pulleys in the top pylon. As the cables travel in one direction, one edge of the wing is pulled up as the other edge is pulled down.

BTW, the four-pronged lever on the undercarriage is connected to the control column by a further pair of cables such that moving the stick from side to side rotates the undercarriage lever in the same direction.

I believe the travel on the wing-warping on the original was about 8" or so up and down. Flying one shouldn't be much of a problem for someone used to flying a 3-channel setup (throttle, rudder, and elevator) but if you think you'll just be able to turn with the wing-warping alone you might be in for an unpleasant surprise -- or have to plan on REALLY wide turns and not much ability to recover from a dumb thumbs episode or an sudden gust.

RE: SR Eindecker
 

I had a semi-scale electric Eastbourne plane last year, which was TRE control - it was a shoulder wing configuration but used some dihedral, I suppose to compensate for not having the wing-warping ... it was a lot of fun and TRE controls were perfectly usable, but I really had to focus on using the rudder. There were a few mishaps at takeoff though, because of reaching for the right-stick! It died due to a mid-air wing collapse pulling up out of a turn (the spar had been compromised during one of the afforementioned mishaps) which was quite a spectacular sight!

That's pretty much what I thought...although I did read somewhere, that the rear spar was hinged at the fuse attach point. However, from all the pics I have seen, it looks like the rear spar fuse attachment point of the Fok.E is a socket, the same as the front and I don't see how there is possibly any "hinging" mechanism in the works.

Thanks for your comments and explanations!

RE: SR Eindecker
 

I've been doing a lot of "TRE" flying in RealFlight to get used to how you need to fly most WWI models. It's still amazing to me that you actually CAN fly and turn a plane without ailerons (or wing-warping).

Like a lot of WWI aircraft the wing spar roots just really slotted into a hole and where held on with the wires. Later on in the war either pins or fancy connectors were used by initially it was just a bunch of wires holding these contraptions together!

RE: SR Eindecker
 

Regarding aileron response - how well does the stock SR Eindecker respond to aileron? Doesn't seem like much area. I can get a little more than the full recommended throw from mine, but not much more. I'm assuming the ailerons aren't going to be real responsive. Can anyone confirm that or set me straight?

RE: SR Eindecker
 

CafeenMan, the SR Eindecker is pretty fairly responsive with ailerons. I rolled it but you need a lot of air under you! A couple of weeks ago I got it up but we had one of those days with sudden gusts of wind and a few times as I was making turns the wind cuaght it and flipped it. It was hairy but the ailerons brought it under control pretty quick. I found that if you have any kind of wind you should use rudder as well as aileron in turns.

RE: SR Eindecker
 

Feep,
Contact Art Shelton. He scratch built a 1/3 scale E-1 with wing warping. Won the NATS in 2004 with it as a matter of fact. [email protected]
It flies very scale...meaning very different than something with ailerons

The pic below is from a recent warbird fly-in in Louisville.

RE: SR Eindecker
 

feep - Thanks for the info.

RE: SR Eindecker
 

Heading out tomorrow with my eindecker. It's supposed to be nice with light winds and blue sky. I'll bring the camera and try to post some pics. I'm interested in finding out if I have solved the porpoising problem. Have a new prop 18x6-10 which seems to work well in taxi trials. I'm crossing my fingers with this project because I want to be able to put it on the back burner for the winter so I can begin to concentrate on the 1/3 scale Pup.

RE: SR Eindecker
 

Made it back in one piece after a very hairy flight in my eindecker. I had that cold sweat that many fighter pilots discribe in combat, when I finally landed. It seems that my elevator was WAY off center and once in the air I was flying with full down trim as well as about 10%-15% down on the stick. The flying was not so bad, although, as soon as I got airborn, the wind began to pick up, but trying to land this kite under these circumstances was not fun. Any more than 1/4 throttle would cause it to climb and stall and once on approach I was either diving towards the ground with no power or climbing with power and no forward airspeed. The point of all of this is that if you are doing a full flying elevator, understand that you need very little throw and refrain from paying too much attention to the LE of the elevator. I found that I was focusing on the LE rather than the TE.

The fix will be to level the fuselage and set the elevators to level as well. Than I will make a small mark on the side of the Fuselage near the LE as a refrence point for future adjustments. No one at this field wants to see that kind of flying agin. It was like watching last years red sox -yankees series.

RE: SR Eindecker
 

LOL I am glad you had a great day feep! It's great to have challenges sometimes isn't it? ;)

RE: SR Eindecker
 

Just wanted to post pictures of my pilot, I chose this one for my Fokker DVII. I agree that the pilots look old, and your right, all the biographys that I have read mention the average age at 20. This Aces of Iron pilot looks just plain tired...of flying, killing and war. Makes it more human.

RE: SR Eindecker
 

Sue, I hope my flying is better than my ability to communicate! How could you possibly get that that was a great day?:D I will admit that it was a challange but I can do without that kind of stress. At any rate, I have adjusted the elevator and will attempt another flight as soon as the weather permits.

PropNut, your work is excellent! No matter how old they look they are still the most realistic on the market. My initial remark was"nitpicking". Do the goggles come seperate or are they molded to the helmet? Do You have a background in figure painting?

RE: SR Eindecker
 

The goggles are molded on. I used to try to paint Battletech miniatures when I was........well, younger. :D