Fokker DR.1Triplane - 1:24 Merit International

[Viking]

Fokker DR.1Triplane

1:24 Merit International

Instantly recognisable as one of the most distinctive aircraft of The Great War, the Fokker Triplane's fame far exceeds its actual contribution to the war effort. It's service life barely stretched to 6 months, and the number built was tiny (320) in relation to other contemporary fighter aircraft such as the Albatros D.V /Va (around 2,500 built).

Undoubtedly it was the association with Manfred Von Richthofen 'The Red Baron' that made it such a famous aircraft. Even members of the public with no interest in aviation will surely be aware of the man and his blood red Triplane. It was not particularly fast, but Its greatest assets were its rate of climb and exceptional manoeuvrability, which made it a deadly opponent in a dog fight. Coupled to the fact that most were only issued to elite units and flown by the most skilled pilots, it is perhaps easier to appreciate why it built up such a formidable reputation in a short space of time. Roughly speaking, it was in service with the Jastas from the end of 1917,and gone from them by the middle of 1918. Very few aircraft of any type have ever had such a short lifespan.

There have been many plastic kits available, almost from the start of the hobby. There cannot be many of us who did not build an Airfix or Revell Triplane in our early years of modelling. It has been well covered in all the main scales, with noteworthy examples from Eduard (1:72 and 1:48), Roden (1:32) , and even a 1:28 version from Revell which has been around for many decades. This new kit from Merit is however the first version that I am aware of in 1:24 scale, and seems to herald the beginning of a new range of Great War aircraft, as their website lists an SE.5a to join it soon.

The kit.
Until recently I was not aware of the 'Merit International' brand, but they are apparently an off-shoot of the well known Trumpeter company. They specialise in large scale kits such as the 1:18 scale F-86 Sabre, Bf 109, Me 262 and AV-8B Harrier amongst others.

The DR.1 kit comes in a sturdy cardboard box with a separate base and lid, which is well filled with five individually wrapped sprue trees, an etched brass fret, two sheets of decals, colour profiles for the finishing option, and an A4 sized instruction booklet. First impressions are of a well packed and presented product.

Sprue A.
This holds the two fuselage halves and many of the interior components. Everything is cleanly moulded with good detail and virtually no flash. The under fuselage stitching along the centre seam is moulded on, rather than being as a separate strip as Eduard do it. It should work well, but will require care when gluing the fuselage halves together.

Sprues B and C.
Each of the three wings are split into upper and lower halves. The fabric effect is really well done, with the underlying structure and ribs being subtly portrayed. The fabric itself looks nice and tightly 'doped on' without the excessive sag that many manufacturers mould on. I'm impressed with how Merit have done it, and it should look very good under a coat of paint.

Sprue D.
The welded steel tube fuselage interior is fully supplied in the form of two side pieces with separate upper and lower cross members. The instructions suggest building it all around the interior components such as floor, seat, ammo tank, etc. Personally I would be tempted to see if I could build up most of the tubular skeleton and then fit in all these parts afterwards. It would make painting of all these parts easier, but might be risky! A bit of dry fitting should give some idea of how feasible this might be.
Also on this sprue are all the cylinder heads and pushrods for the engine, and the cabane and interplane struts for the wings. The moulding is all very neat with no flash and the tiniest of seams to scrape once off the sprue.

Sprue E.
Engine halves, firewall, cowling, axle wing, wheels, rudder, tailplane and propeller are all here. Again the moulding is neat and almost flash free. None of the sprues show any sign of sink marks and are competently produced.
The Axial propeller is moulded with nice thin trailing edges and blade cross sections. It is however a little bit 'pinched looking' at the rear of the blades near the roots. It is nothing too serious, but I will build mine up a little with Milliput and blend it in.
The wheels are nicely defined as single piece mouldings with sharp hub to tyre definition, which will make painting a simple easy task. The engine has nicely defined detail, with separate spark plugs. Many of us will want to add some very fine copper wire for the plug leads. I do this on all my Wingnut Wings and Eduard kits, because once you have done it you feel obliged to do it to all your builds!

Etch.
The etched brass sheet supplies a pair of cooling jackets for the twin Spandau machine guns, and control horns for the elevators and ailerons.

Decals.
The smaller of the two sheets contains all the national markings and subjects for the two individual finishing options, along with some instrument faces and propeller logos etc.

A larger sheet offers a representation of the Fokker 'Streaky' camouflage for the upper wing surfaces and fuselage. If you are not familiar with this, the Fokker factory applied a streaky effect to many of their aircraft types. It was hand painted by wide brush using a green/olive colour, and deliberately streaked in one direction.
If you are not confident in doing this on the model, then the decals will do all the hard work for you. I have worked out a way to do this with oil paints described here, as I personally prefer to be able to vary the tone and shade of the streaking over what most decals provide. Well done to Merit for giving the modeller the choice though.

Options.
Both are well known, but it is pleasing to note that Manfred Von Richthofen's overall red DR.1 has been avoided. Instead we have one of his earlier DR.1s 152/17, which in my opinion is far more attractive in its streaky green with red sections.
The second option is Jasta 2's Fritz Kempf 'Kennscht mi noch?' which translates as either 'Remember me?' or 'Do you know me?'. It was something of a taunt to allied pilots, and to make sure, Kempf had his name painted in large letters on the top wing.
Although not mentioned in the instructions, it would be possible to create several other DR.1s using just the basic 'Iron Crosses'. Many had simple designs painted on the fuselage which covered most, if not all, of the serial number.

Guns.
The LMG 08/15 machine guns are supplied with etched brass jackets, but further comment is needed here. The kit supplies solid mouldings for the guns and the builder is instructed to wrap the etched jackets around the solid barrel. While this will work, I don't see the point in it, as the advantage of the etched 'slot' openings will be all but lost. I therefore modified mine to how easy it would be to improve them.
Firstly I cut off the solid barrel, leaving a lip at each end for the etched jacket to glue on to. Then I drilled a hole in each end for the new barrel. The barrels on the Spandaus were only thin tubes, the purpose of the slotted jacket was to act as a heat sink and cool it down. A new barrel was cut from 1mm brass wire, and put in place. The etched jacket can then be slid over.

Finally, there is a trigger/cocking mechanism on the right side of the gun, which is not represented at all. I built this up from rod and strip to give a reasonable representation of what I can see from photographs.

A simple and effective improvement that took all of 10 minutes to do. I also drilled out the solid sight on top of the muzzle, and cyano'd on a cross hair from fine copper wire. The cross hairs were 1 cm long, trimmed off when set.

I feel that these modifications/additions are essential in this scale, as the guns supplied ok in shape but lacking in detail.
The other item that will need dealing with is the lack of seat belts. In this scale they are essential as they are such a prominent detail in the open cockpit. I was a little surprised that none were included on the etched fret. However, it is not too difficult to fabricate a set. A simple remedy might be to photocopy and enlarge some from a 1/48th set, and use the copy to cut some from tape or wine bottle foil. Alternatively the aftermarket may offer such items.

Conclusion.
An interesting model in the large 1:24 scale, which won't take up too much space. It will perhaps make a good companion to those similarly scaled 109's from Airfix and Trumpeter, showing the evolution of the German air force over the space of 25-odd years.
Don't be put off by omission of seat belts or need to enhance the guns, this is a very nicely moulded kit and a good first entry into Great War modelling by Merit. The DR.1 has none of the complications of biplanes as the mid and lower wings fit directly to the fuselage, and the top wing fits easily onto the 4 struts. Rigging is simple, just 2 wires between the cabane struts and 2 more on the undercarriage.
The unpainted but built up example in 'The Rumourmonger' shows a very accurate looking model. The proportions all look right and captures the look and feel of the DR.1 very well.


Recommended.

Review sample courtesy of

UK distributors for

[Dave T]

Nice write up, have two of these now and will start one soon.

Looking forward to their SE.5A....

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234988480-124-royal-aircraft-factory-se5a-by-merit-box-arttest-build-release-late-2015/

[hacker]

cost?

[Paul Thompson]

It's been pointed out on a WWI modelling site that you shouldn't use the decals with the supplied engine, because it's a Clerget. A few DrIs did use captured Clergets, but not those two. There are also quite a few detail errors. It's at http://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=6435.msg117608#msg117608. Not dissing the kit, I haven't seen one in the flesh yet, and it is nice to see a resurgence in 1/24th WWI (the old Contrail/ Black Knight kits of the SE5a, Nieuport 17 and Albatros D.V being the only ones I'm aware of). So, just reported what I've seen written - the people at that site know their stuff.

Paul.

[Dave T]

Big H has it for 49.99....

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/MM62403

[BlackBart]

Hmm, quite tempted by this especially with an SE5 to go with it. Cheers for the review.

[hacker]

It's been pointed out on a WWI modelling site that you shouldn't use the decals with the supplied engine, because it's a Clerget. A few DrIs did use captured Clergets, but not those two. There are also quite a few detail errors. It's at http://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=6435.msg117608#msg117608. Not dissing the kit, I haven't seen one in the flesh yet, and it is nice to see a resurgence in 1/24th WWI (the old Contrail/ Black Knight kits of the SE5a, Nieuport 17 and Albatros D.V being the only ones I'm aware of). So, just reported what I've seen written - the people at that site know their stuff.

Paul.

Yah l agree though the Revell 1/28 Fokker D VII was a bit of a mess