Jump to content

First to Fight (2x1/72 Arma Hobby Fokker E.V)


Recommended Posts

"Je­dy­nie miecz waży dziś coś na sza­li losu na­rodów."

["Only the sword now carries any weight in the balance for the destiny of a nation"]

 

-- Josef Pilsudski, 21 February 1914

 

 

Wow, it's been a long time since I've started one of these threads. My time is incredibly limited these days, with the boys getting more active and staying awake longer, and trying to exercise more (I've run three 5Ks this week and hope to get in a fourth tomorrow, and manage to run four each in the previous two weeks -- it seems to be working, I'm not snoring loud enough for Mrs P to kick me awake anymore), and trying to read more (I'm plowing through Jonathan Sumption's history of the Hundred Years War), and just generally being old and tired and pretty worn-out for thirty-five.

 

42265880922_934b3264e1_h.jpg20180523_210023 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

You see what I mean. I haven't even had time for a haircut since February!

 

Anyway, now that I'm finally done with the Blenheims, or as done as I'm gonna be, I can get my start on some kits I've been looking forward to all year: Arma Hobby's Fokker E.V kit. I'm not a huge fan of the Fokker E.V/D.VIII, but it was the first fighter of the Polish Air Force, which I am a big fan of. I also really like Arma Hobby, who I feel are well on their way to being for Poland what Eduard is to the Czech Republic. 

 

You're probably at least in passing familiar with the Fokker E.V's career in German service during the tail end of WWI, where it suffered from structural problems (a combination of faulty assembly techniques by Fokker, who were notorious for cutting corners, and condensation causing the interior of the wing to rot; in tandem these caused several catastrophic wing failures in flight) and shot down a single allied aircraft on 17 August 1918. The aircraft had done well in the German competitions for new fighter aircraft, but it was almost immediately eclipsed by the Fokker D.VII, probably the great German fighter of the war; by comparison, the E.V (D.VIII, as re-winged versions were known) was underpowered and slow, though very maneuverable. A single example has survived to the present day in Italy, of all places, albeit lacking the wing or any of the fabric covering. 

 

In any case, a few E.Vs made their way into Poland after the implosion of the Central Powers in 1918, and promptly ended up participating in the Polish-Ukrainian War (which went badly for Ukraine), where 187/18 "001", flown by Stefan Stec, managed to damage a Ukrainian Nieuport. Stec had previously shot down three aircraft while flying for the Austrian K.u.K. Luftfahrtruppen over the Italian Front, and this is one of the two aircraft I'll be building. By the by, Stec, who's credited with the creation of the Polish checkerboard marking, was killed in an air crash in 1921; due to the vagaries of post-WWII border changes, his body is buried somewhere in Lviv, now part of Ukraine. I use "somewhere" advisedly, for during the Soviet era, with that particular brand of mean-spiritedness that made the Russians so odious to the countries they made their satraps, the cemetary where he was interred was demolished to make way for a truck park, and while an enterprising Polish patriot named Maria Tereszczakówna managed to save his remains and the remains of many other Polish heroes, nobody seems to quite know where they've been hidden, and intermittent bad relations between Poland and Ukraine have complicated things.  

 

The other aircraft I'll be building is 175/18 as she appeared in 1926, in what appears to be an overall olive drab scheme not unlike that seen on Polish fighters during the September Campaign in 1939. I'm using the decals from a Junior set boxing for that one. 

 

27444573607_3672fa7f3f_h.jpg20180523_213843 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

All I managed to do tonight after tidying up (sort of) the grotto was clip the fuselage pieces off of the sprues for both kits. The Expert Kit has decals to represent both the wooden interior portions and the internal sides of the fabric covering, which would be far too complex for any normal person to paint, given the particoloured hex pattern. I gave the appropriate parts a coat of future to prepare them for the decals. The Junior kit doesn't have decals for the interior; I'm not sure if a Polish E.V at this late date would have painted or doped over the fabric interior or not.

 

42266333982_72374fe8ce_h.jpg20180523_221351 by Edward IX, on Flickr

  • Like 18
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As you know I have one of these in the stash :) 

 

I look forward to seeing how you get on with it; if it is of comparable quality to their P.7a you should have a good build B)

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, 06/24 said:

Hope this is more fun than the blasted Blenheims!

The frustration was more at how long it took me to finish them than with the kits, I think in the end.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

48 minutes ago, 06/24 said:

Fair comment. These will <not> be the same 😊

I hope not! 

 

8 hours ago, Stew Dapple said:

I look forward to seeing how you get on with it; if it is of comparable quality to their P.7a you should have a good build B)

So far, so good. They remind me a little of what a Roden kit would be like if everything fit on the first go. 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another great background introduction PC and more interesting subjects - I’m in, of course!

 

Did you fix the treadmill? I’ve been worrying about it and wonder if it’s just a loose connection after the move and subsequent thumping?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/24/2018 at 6:16 PM, CedB said:

Did you fix the treadmill? I’ve been worrying about it and wonder if it’s just a loose connection after the move and subsequent thumping?

No, my dad came over and fiddled with it while I referred to the servicing manual, but to no result. As it's from 1998, it's highly probable that the parts would need to be replaced entirely and at great expense. It makes me depressed every time I look at it.

 

Today the temperature in Chicago skyrocketed from the low sixties Fahrenheit (about 16 C) to 92 F (33 C) with a cloudless blue sky. I had the day off (it's our Memorial Day on Monday, and if all goes according to plan, I'll again be putting a Union flag in front of the sole British soldier interred in the local military cemetery), and as I pushed Grant's stroller towards my parents' house for one of my periodic no sooner-there-than-regretted visits, I could've sworn I saw a dusty column of Foreign Legionnaires looking for an oasis. It's a scorcher out there, I'm trying to say, and yet another one of those periodic reminders that this part of the world is inimical to human life. I had hoped to more or less evade my parental responsibilities and leave the kids with my parents, but you can't kid a kidder, and it ended up with me carrying Winston around the block as he shouted "faster and faster" at me and black spots appeared at the periphery of my vision and crept inwards. I did manage to eke out an hour to go and get my hair cut after four months in which it had gradually reared up into a sort of unmanageable curly beehive, so that was good. To add insult to injury, Mrs P went out with one of my sisters and got drunk, but dangerously, not drunk enough to know she was drunk, and pedantically reiterated a conversation we'd already had that she couldn't remember. It took an hour of precious children-asleep time to untangle that puzzler, let me tell you. 

 

But you don't care about all that. 

 

So the interior decals are on.

 

28483511608_c726e1c600_h.jpg20180525_231007 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Don't worry about the exposed plastic on the floor part; I did, but the pedals will be PE bits added in the fullness of time, and a stick and some control rods should cover the other visible bare plastic. 

 

The decals are still drying right now, but I think the overall effect is pretty sweet, don't you? DON'T YOU?

 

42308496662_5afb4e1d6d_h.jpg20180525_230357 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

 

  • Like 17
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Procopius said:

The decals are still drying right now, but I think the overall effect is pretty sweet, don't you?

 

Yes, I certainly do - I don't think it would have been possible to paint that (or to clarify, I don't think it would have been possible for me to paint that); I do hope that it will be at least faintly visible when the fuselage halves are joined?

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Stew Dapple said:

 

Yes, I certainly do - I don't think it would have been possible to paint that (or to clarify, I don't think it would have been possible for me to paint that)

I think I could do a semi-convincing wood effect, but yes, lozenge...never! Never. 

 

1 minute ago, Stew Dapple said:

 

I do hope that it will be at least faintly visible when the fuselage halves are joined?

Let it not be said that my build threads are lacking in suspense.

  • Haha 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/24/2018 at 5:35 AM, Procopius said:

 

In any case, a few E.Vs made their way into Poland after the implosion of the Central Powers in 1918, and promptly ended up participating in the Polish-Ukrainian War (which went badly for Ukraine), where 187/18 "001", flown by Stefan Stec, managed to damage a Ukrainian Nieuport. Stec had previously shot down three aircraft while flying for the Austrian K.u.K. Luftfahrtruppen over the Italian Front, and this is one of the two aircraft I'll be building. By the by, Stec, who's credited with the creation of the Polish checkerboard marking, was killed in an air crash in 1921; due to the vagaries of post-WWII border changes, his body is buried somewhere in Lviv, now part of Ukraine. I use "somewhere" advisedly, for during the Soviet era, with that particular brand of mean-spiritedness that made the Russians so odious to the countries they made their satraps, the cemetary where he was interred was demolished to make way for a truck park, and while an enterprising Polish patriot named Maria Tereszczakówna managed to save his remains and the remains of many other Polish heroes, nobody seems to quite know where they've been hidden, and intermittent bad relations between Poland and Ukraine have complicated things.  

A well-argued (as always in your introductions) reminder that the innocuous act of building a model can't be neatly displaced from the events that produced the original. Ignored perhaps, but not denied....

1 hour ago, 06/24 said:

You must all forgive me, I'm from Hampshire originally and trout streams and watercress beds are the bedrock of my mythos of home...

What a splendid sentence on a May morning - I can hear that soundtrack of water-chuckle and insect hum from here Jon!

 

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice lozenges. The lozenge decals look like they have very fine textured fabric effect, which I've never seen before. Makes a change from "patchy pale brick red" on all those British inter-war and WWII subjects. 

 

Regards,

Adrian

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Procopius said:

 92 F (33 C) with a cloudless blue sky.

 

Sounds blissful. The temperature here is heading the other way, because the world keeps on turning and won't give me an endless summer, curse it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/26/2018 at 5:14 PM, Rob G said:

 

Sounds blissful. The temperature here is heading the other way, because the world keeps on turning and won't give me an endless summer, curse it.

 

A delightful song from the now-defunct band Matt Pond PA that to me has to be one of the quintessential summer tracks. These past few years have been strange ones for me musically, as I've remarked, since the bands who I followed in my callow youth and managed to survive past 2010 are now starting to wrap it off in the next great wave of die-offs. I trust The National will last forever, or at least as long as 45-year-old men need to drunkenly reminisce about missed chances and lost loves on their porch stoop on summer evenings. 

 

If the above is too punchy for you, Matt covers his band accompanied by his mom(!), which I found kinda sweet:

 

 

 

On 5/26/2018 at 5:04 PM, Terry1954 said:

I'm joining this one as it looks interesting. I saw that kit at a recent show and was tempted. Love the lozenge decal!

 

Terry

 

 

 

 

It's our Memorial Day today, as I mentioned, so my stern-faced bride and I took our offspring down to the shores of Lake Michigan and passed a pleasant hour or two.

 

40606333850_11fb97bab1_h.jpg20180528_100849 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Before that, however, I paid my yearly visit to Private Cyril Evans, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, who was a prisoner of war of the Japanese and died at Camp Grant, in Rockford, Illinois on his way home to the UK in October of 1945. Every year all of the soldiers' graves at the fort's cemetery receive an American flag, and a few years ago I noticed Private Evans' grave and thought he might prefer to sleep under his own flag. I had to email the US Army for permission, which they graciously extended, and I've been trying to do it every year since.

 

42364494752_5c94a6332d_h.jpg20180528_105642 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

28534752168_b5047dbb9b_h.jpg20180528_075419 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

 

  • Like 13
  • Thanks 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A couple of complaints -

 

First off our television channels are crammed full of come vist Michigan commercials this year. I often think of your rants before I ff.  It's not like the come visit Texas or California commercials. Our environments are almost exactly the same.  I don't get it.

 

 

Second, watching a man with a full head of hair complain about hair cuts is God's cruelest joke on a bald man. To add insult to injury, I've had to stop shaving my head due to surgery at the beginning of the month. I feel like Mr Johnson off of Sesame Street.

 

images (3)

 

images (4)

 

Rant over. Great work so far.

 

  • Like 2
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Thud4444 said:

First off our television channels are crammed full of come vist Michigan commercials this year. I often think of your rants before I ff.  It's not like the come visit Texas or California commercials. Our environments are almost exactly the same.  I don't get it.

Yeah, we get 'em here, too, which is even less comprehensible, since every part of Michigan you'd want to visit borders the Great Lakes, and Lake Michigan is within walking distance of my home. The only differences are that they have hills and rather larger mosquitoes. 

 

So this evening to distract him before dinner (as he'd unspooled a roll of toilet paper and run the length of the house with it) I took Winston downstairs with me to "help" me model, which is a big deal for him, since he's never seen me building a model for myself before. (I've put together models for his benefit quite quickly, but that's a different deal.) For WWI aircraft, I use the beautiful but rather dodgy MisterKit paint line, which has caused me nothing but heartache over the years, but @limeypilot (I think) gave me the hot tip to use Tamiya thinner for them instead of literally everything else I've tried, including my own tears of impotent rage. The end result was that Winston was spared learning some new words (not really, he was in the car when Mrs P had to parallel park in Chicago recently and she deployed her full battery of expletives -- beautiful parking job, though). 

 

41520752685_3811dd8857_h.jpg20180528_210503 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Here's the first colour laid down. Winston even got to hold the airbrush (with my hand keeping it stable in a death grip in case he's inherited his mother's appallingly weak fingers that have condemned a dozen glasses to early graves) and spray out water when I cleaned it out. We then adjourned for dinner, the upper floors of the house all the better for having been spared his enthusiasms for forty minutes.

 

So the Germans, in their indefinite wisdom, used a strange undersurface pattern of turquoise and mauve which was as striking as it was absurd. I only have two photos of Stec's "001" in the Windsock E/V/D.VIII book, and neither clearly shows the pattern on the underside of the wing. Arma has an excellent blog with information on all of their kits, and it has an article on the E.V wing specifically, but unfortunately, the photos of Stec's wing underside are failing to load for me. So none of this would be a concern, but when I laid down the mauve, I was looking at the painting guide for a WWI-era German machine, in the foolish assumption that they would use the same camo pattern. Of course in those far-off days of artisanal aircraft production, there's no such guarantee. So I mostly want to see the photos to see how much wiggle room I have, or if I need to do a repaint.  (Incidentally, the real deal would likely have had the infamous Fokker streaking effect as seen on, for example, Werner Voss's DrI, but I'm not really up to replicating that with the airbrush, so here we are, faute de mieux. ) 

 

27553039087_86f3dab341_h.jpg20180528_212104 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

And then I remembered that the second aircraft I'm building was a ground instructional airframe and had been totally repainted. So I would need to paint over it all. Unless...

 

28549842928_c81df41fca_h.jpg20180528_220533 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

I dug out my third kit and got started on her as well. 

 

I also painted the internal metal tube framing that's inside the fuselage. The instructions suggest this should be painted olive drab (Fokker used an olive-coloured dope for struts, cowls, and metal panels, as well as many non-metallic parts), though the Windsock book suggests that the internal tubing was "usually" left in natural metal, but the photos I've seen of unfinished or stripped aircraft look awfully dark, and one can easily envision these parts being painted as anti-corrosion measures, or to dull reflection or whatever, and I also already painted all of them Fokker Olive, so it's not changing now.

 

42422880941_7c6b563ef6_h.jpg20180528_223549 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

The decals snuggled down quite nicely and look jolly nice, I think.

 

So far, as far as the kit goes, I like it a lot! Some things to watch out for: the internal framing is fragile and has many attachment points; there were little breaks in each one that I did, though I was able to patch them up with Tamiya Extra Thin. Similarly, the wings have two robust sprue gates at the trailing edge of the wing that also go over the underside of the wing. I needed to do some filling on all three wings, but on the last, I used a razor saw rather than my nippers and it was much less substantial of a job.

 

 

  • Like 14
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...