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Fokker E111 "Eindecker"
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| The above painting "Snowbird" by artist Brian Knight depicts an Eindecker 111 owned by the Austro-Hungarian Army and flown by Oberleutnant Ludwig Hautzmayer. This classic German aircraft of 1914 revolutionized the German war in the air. The fixed machine gun firing through the propeller was a first in technology and caught the allies by surprise. The E111 took an alarming toll of British and French machines, to the point where the Royal Flying Corps referred to their defenseless airmen as "fokker-fodder". | |||||
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May 15 2010.....I will be building the "Snowbird" at 1/4 scale from a laser-cut kit by SR Batteries Ltd. This is the most complete and the most accurately cut kit that I have ever worked with.....the laser cutting is so accurate that all of the pieces are a "push fit" into one another. I rarely ever had to use a knife or sandpaper to trim and fit the parts. The photo below shows the progress after a couple weeks work. Everything literally falls together.....a nice change of pace after building scratch from plans.
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At this point all of
the framing is done, servos installed, engine & fuel installed, cowling
fitted and I am waiting for covering material. The engine is the Saito 300
twin out of my deceased Super Cub....It has the twin carbs and spark
ignition. This plan has made use of carbon fibre tubes for the wing spars and a lot of other parts.....very strong. My only complaint so far is that this thing is going to be very heavy. Oh well.....lots of power!! This is a standoff scale model.....not at all suitable for top level scale competition, but it will look good in the air for sure!! |
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| Eindeckers really did'nt have steering tailskids but this one does.....a fixed skid doesn't allow for easy maneuvering on the grass so I'm making mine to steer with the rudder. The vertical skid support is a tube inside a tube so that when the rudder is turned the skid follows. It can still bounce on the bungee because the bungee support turns with the skid. |
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"SQUIGGLES"
The metal cowls on these old airplanes were randomly buffed to take away
the glare from the shiny metal surfaces. The buffing was not a consistent
pattern and each airplane differed a little from the previous one.
I applied these "squiggles" with
a Dremmel tool and a wire brush......not easy to get a "random"
pattern.....I think it would have been easier to do a machine finish in
straight lines but this is how the real one looked. The wire tower will hold the landing wires. |
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Now for some more detail..... Here the covering has been applied to the rudder.....just to get the effect of the finish before doing the whole nine yards. I'm using white Solartex. The cross is masked and painted with latex. The grey-green as used by the Austro-Hungarian air force is tested on the lower tip of the rudder.....it is latex as well. The whole thing is clearcoated with Nelsons flat clear.....which is also also a latex base clear.
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The root rib bay was sheeted in
to allow for the compass and aluminum step plates to be mounted....It
appears that the pilot had to look at the compass set into the
wing.......I wonder why way out there and not on the instrument panel? The compass was made of 1"
aluminum tubing and the faceplate
was printed on my computer. |
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 Small details are starting to go on..... The foot-steps are made of brass tubing, soldered and painted. I love to do this detail stuff !! |
 The pull-pull system for the tailfeathers are pretty standard. They used a lot of leather patches over many of the joints on this airplane.
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 A bit of oak trim attached with tiny brass brads hides the joint between the fabric and metal surfaces and insures that the fabric does'nt pull away from the metalwork. |
Here's the gas filler cap on the back deck. |
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 And the little brass engine nameplate under the cowl cheek. |
 The ammo belt and magazine box.
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This is the fun
part....painting.....I
did'nt like the mylar decals that came with the kit so I masked and
painted them with latex and clearcoated them with Nelson's flat clear. I'm
using this paint system on the whole plane. |
Ludwig has taken the driver's
seat. He is an "Aces of Iron" plastic figure painted by my daughter "the
artist" The detail and flesh tones are very well done.
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| Here the crankcase for the engine is carved from pink foam and covered with glasscloth. I used a hot wire to cut out the unwanted foam after the glasscloth had set up. Nine Williams Bros. cylinders will be mounted on the flat sides of the crankcase. |
Here is the Oberursel dummy engine in place (it's a Williams kit) and the eight-bolt prop hub was made on the lathe.
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July18 2010..... |
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more to come..... |
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