Fokker E.V (D.VIII) - Belgium 1920 - 1/72 Arma Hobby

[lunarhighway]

Hi all,

 

First and foremost best wishes for the new year, including lots of good modelling time!

 

As a had a few days to relax these days i thought i'd look for an interesting little project that would be engaging enough but i could finish over the holidays. enter the Fokker by Arma Hobby

 

Post WW1 Belgium acquired a single Fokker E.V that had been brought up to D.VIII standard (as far as i can tell this was a mandatory upgrade made by the Germans as the early E.V had a serious structural flaw that could cause catastrophic failure of the, than very advanced, wing structure, so it was in essence an early factory recall.

 

in Belgian service this single machine participated in air shows and had a short career in a civil air school. a flying replica of this very machine exists today.

 

Arma Hobbies Fokker E.V in the "expert set" is a lovely little kit. it consists of a single small sprue and some photo-etch to supplement some of the finest kit parts. not much at first glance but a lot of fun to build with not much room for error.

 

 

 

 

the markings where painted on but kit decals where used for the instruments en interior wood and fabric textures and these worked beautifully, there is also a wood decal for the prop, but i chose to paint it.

 

 

i find a good technique for painting markings is to start with the light colours and masking those, working your way up until the entire marking is painted and masked, and only than paint the entire model.

this reduces the chance of heavy paint build-up against the masks when trying to get light colours to cover dark cammo. one this i forgot about was to coat with a varnish between each mask, the idea being the invisible varnish will bleed under seal all mask imperfections rather than the subsequent layer of darker paint as i has some minor issues with now.

 

 

 

there are a few differences between the model en the real thing, it looks like the real plane had the guns removed, and featured a different winshield, 

but i installed the kit parts, it's on of the areas where photo etch makes all the difference

 

 

 

 

 

the engine, although largely hidden is also a thing of beauty, again here the photo etch pushrods add a lot or realism.

 

 

 

 

 

things to look out for when building this kit:

- two of the decals for the dials on the cockpit side and engine hood are swapped in the instructions, and as they are a different diameter this would give problems

 

- the framing for the sidewalls is very fine and a ended up breaking one so take care removing those from the sprue.

 

- there is a minor amount of flash and mold lines, witch need to be removed carefully. this is not difficult, but given the overall finesse of the parts it's sometimes hard to see if it's flash or a sharp edge that should be there

 

- the stick has a control lever that protrudes trough the bottom of the airframe, i didn't realise this until it was to late and i had replicate the arm and rod from scratch, i didn't do the best job.

 

Overall construction went very well, and fit and alignment was surprisingly good, the extra detail you get in the "expert" boxing was certainly worth it. the only downside is you have to get real close to see all the details at witch point every minor imperfection becomes visible as well, so there's the question of what level of detail you really want in this scale, regardless i had great fun building it!

 

 

 

 

[Marcel]

Great! A lovely little model. Fokker D.VII next?

[lunarhighway]

9 minutes ago, Marcel said:

Great! A lovely little model. Fokker D.VII next?

 

I did try the vintage Revell fokker D.VII, a long time ago, a fun mojo build but not to the same standard

 

but i have the Roden kit as well and that should make a better companion for this one...