Jump to content

Dornier-17E/F ***FINISHED***


PeterB

Recommended Posts

Back in 1972 Airfix released this kit and I bought and built it - not very well as the plastic cement in those days had been modified to combat glue sniffing and although it smelled nice, it was not to good at sticking plastic together! Later I would add the Frog Do-17Z and I already had the Airfix Do-217E, and much later I bought the Italeri Do-217K1. which I hope to build in this GB also.

 

About 10 years ago I decided to strip and refurbish this kit and maybe add an undercarriage, as originally I had built it wheels up. Unfortunately it never got rebuilt but I have managed to find most of the bits.

DSC06082-crop

Since taking the above photo I have also found the transparent parts, but I have a Falcon replacement set I may use instead. It needs a bit more cleaning up before I start but the only parts currently glued together are the horizontal and vertical tails and the props mounted on the engine fronts, so it is below 25% complete. It is going to take a fair bit of work and given the number of GB I am involved in at the moment it might not get finished but we will see. Unlike the Do-17Z this is the true "Flying Pencil" version and will make an interesting comparison. As far as I can see the only difference between the E and F involved the bomb sight on the E, the F being a recce version, and the different windscreen, with the F having an extra mg stuck through it on the right. The Falcon set only provides this later type which it claims was standard on the E as well, but that is not quite true I think. Certainly I have seen pics labelled E with the later windscreen but also ones with the earlier one, but more on that later.

 

See you later.

 

Pete

  • Like 11
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

When I first started building model planes I did them wheels down, but as a result of limited storage space, after a while I started mounting them on stands – the Airfix range had several different sizes which allowed small ones to be “stacked” under bigger ones, and I decided they looked better with the wheels up. More recently and with somewhat more shelving I went back to wheels down, so when I decided to start refurbishing some old kits I ended up scratch building undercarriages. A combination of my spares boxes and AM resin parts covered the main wheels but tailwheels can be a problem and I wish I had not thrown or lost the box I put all the u/c in when I took them off my old Stirling, Condor and the like. Building the legs can be pretty straightforward with a combination of paper clips of various sizes and plastic rod and tube, but the one thing which is a definite problem is mudguards. Fortunately not many planes seem to have had them but the Dornier 17 family did!

 

I don't know about you but bending plastic card is fine to go around the diameter of the wheel but ruddy impossible to also put in another curve across the thickness of the wheel, unless perhaps you plunge/pull mould it. When I refurbished my Do 217-E I tried resin moulding some mudguards but the results were poor – it was just too thin for the method I used and trapped air caused “short shots” - that is why I ended up buying a cheap Italeri kit for spares. However, I have been thinking about it and modified the way I cast the mould, and have had some success – 4 out of 6 are useable but very fragile. With care I should be able to use them.

DSC06540-crop

 Now all I need to do is build the rest of the undercarriage!

 

This being an STGB I guess you are all pretty familiar with this aircraft family so I won't indulge in my usual long-winded rant but I would like to cover a couple of things. Firstly, during the clandestine build up before Hitler announced the existence of the Luftwaffe an number of planes were designed and built under the pretence of being for civilian use – the Ju 86 and He 111 come to mind. Others such as the He 70 and Ju 52/3 were genuine civil aircraft that later were converted to military use and another was the Do 17, which was designed to meet a Lufthansa requirement for a high speed mail plane capable of carrying 6 passengers. It had the speed and the range, but the passengers would have considerable difficulty getting into their two small compartments according to William Green  in his Warplanes of the Third Reich, so Lufthansa turned it down and the 3 prototypes were put in a hangar, and that would perhaps have been the end of the story. However, Green says that a former Dornier employee and now a senior pilot with Lufthansa, Flugkapitan Untuch paid the factory a visit and decided to take one up for a test flight. As liaison officer between Lufthansa and the Air Ministry he decided that with a few changes it would make a decent bomber, and recommended production be started, and the rest, as the saying goes, is history. In truth the early versions were pretty mediocre bombers by wartime standards, though the Do-17Z was somewhat better, but they filled the gap until better machines arrived - in theory!

 

I will come to the second point during the build.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

 

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Pete,

 

great to see you are refurbishing an old kit, giving it a new lease of life. The Airfix kit is still very nice, even compared with the much never RS-kit, which speaks volumes about the effort Airfix obviously put into it.

 

On 4/16/2022 at 4:00 PM, PeterB said:

As far as I can see the only difference between the E and F involved the bomb sight on the E, the F being a recce version, and the different windscreen, with the F having an extra mg stuck through it on the right. The Falcon set only provides this later type which it claims was standard on the E as well, but that is not quite true I think.

Regarding the windscreen there were indeed two different types. The 'early' one with angled front on both sides and the 'late' type with the flat front on the right side. The different types are not specific to either version as photos for both, the E and the F show them fitted with both types. It seems the 'late' type was introduced in the mid of the production run on both variants.

While I've not seen it mentioned in any reference, I'm of the opinion that this change was done in order to improve the space conditions for the gunner.

 

11 hours ago, PeterB said:

Firstly, during the clandestine build up before Hitler announced the existence of the Luftwaffe an number of planes were designed and built under the pretence of being for civilian use – the Ju 86 and He 111 come to mind. Others such as the He 70 and Ju 52/3 were genuine civil aircraft that later were converted to military use and another was the Do 17, which was designed to meet a Lufthansa requirement for a high speed mail plane capable of carrying 6 passengers.

I hope you don't mind when I put in some corrections here. While this is the 'official' story which is repeated since decades, latest research paint a much different picture.

A good article about the development history of the Do 17 can be found here at the Homepage of the 'Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsche Luftfahrthistorik' (while written in German, just copy the text and run it through a translator): https://adl-luftfahrthistorik.de/dok/bomber-dornier-do-17-entwicklung-luftwaffe.pdf

 

In fact, the Do 17 was designed from the very beginning solely as a military aircraft and actually paid little to no regard to a civilian use (in contrast to the Ju 86 and He 111).

Development of the Do 17 began before the Nazis rise to power in the Weimar Republic and was initiated by the Reichswehr in 1932. While officially developed as a civil plane for the Deutsche Lufthansa (DLH) it was very clear at this time that no compromises were to be made regarding any civilian use as DLH was not involved in defining the requirements or assessing the mock-ups.

The final contract from May 24th, 1933 issued by the now created RLM (signed by Erhard Milch) to Dornier make this again clear: "... Lieferung von 2 Flugzeugen dieses Musters und zwar eines Flugzeugs für die Zwecke des Reichsverbands der Deutschen Luftfahrtindustrie und eines für die Zwecke der Deutschen Luft Hansa, jedoch mit der Massgabe, das die von Ihnen in Aussicht genommene gewisse Trennung beider Projekte nicht vorgenommen wird und das die Belange des Reichsverbands der Deutschen Luftfahrtindustrie Vorrang vor denjenigen der Luft Hansa haben."

This was a reply to Dornier's proposal to create two development lines with specific changes to the airframe for civil or military use. It makes clear that the airframe had to adhere only to the requirements of the RDLI (pseudonym for the Luftwaffe) as they took precedence over any civilian requirements.

Also, certain design features which were previously seen as a sign of the implementation of civil requirements were in fact purely driven by the military use. One example are the eight windows behind the wing. While they are often mention in connection with the planned passenger cabin they were in fact windows for the radio operator/gunner. It was soon decided that this position was quite unfavourable so the radio and gunner position were relocated behind the pilot.

 

In short, the story that the Do 17 was developed as a civil aircraft and only by accident became a bomber holds little ground. The opposite is true, the Do 17 was in fact the first aircraft which was designed for military use only.

 

 

Cheers

Markus

 

 

Edited by Shorty84
  • Like 1
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Markus,

 

 

No, I don't mind in the least - always good to hear the facts. As you say Green's version did seem a bit dubious as Dornier had built civil aircraft before and the "passenger accomodation" on the Do 17 did look a bit like an afterthought. However, as with the story of the second prototype Ju390 supposedly flying almost to US, which later proved inaccurate, once someone like Green puts it in a book a lot of other authors presume it must be right and repeat it! When I was at school very many years ago, we did spend a year learning to read German so that we could translate technical documents, and whilst I have forgotten most of it, I still have a dictionary and can work things out fairly well.

 

Thanks for the information on the canopies as well as it confirms what I suspected. That was going to be the second point I made and I was going to ask if anybody knew the answer, but now I don't need to bother!

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Pete,

 

my pleasure.

Repeating of 'common known facts' is not limited to certain Authors. Such information were often the result of interrogations at the end/after the war, where a lot of people tried to lift their own importance by releasing 'secret' information (the New York flight being an example here) or putting certain events into a more favourable light for themselves.

They found their way into publications and were repeated and again, becoming indisputable facts.

In case of Luftwaffe subjects, this was not helped by certain postwar 'researchers' who often fabricated pictures based on vague description due to the absence of real evidence. They are often still published as real today but are merely montages (e.g. the Ju 390V2 or this pic of how the He 176 allegedly looked like, while decades later it came to light to have really looked like that).

 

Of course, quite often primary sources were not available back then but it is really hard to kill off these incorrect information after they were repeated for decades.

 

Cheers

Markus

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Markus,

 

As you say, I gather Green was misled about the Ju 390 by a report of an interview with a member of the Luftwaffe by US forces, but when he found out he published a retraction. Whether the prisoner was trying to make himself sound important, or maybe just trying to mislead the interviewer I don't know - perhaps he was even boasting about how close the Germans came to bombing New York - allegedly just to satisfy his own ego! Of course by that time the damage was done and I have seen the same error in books published as recently as 1990 or maybe 2000, well after Green acknowledged that the information he based the claim on was wrong. Probably a case of inadequate research or perhaps just laziness on the part of the author of the more recent book.

 

Pete

 

 

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

As we are already one month into this STGB I thought I had better make a start! I mentioned earlier that the glue I used was not very nice, and so the first thing I did was file/scrape the residue off as much as I could, even though it mesant losing the locating pins in the process - should not be a problem.

DSC06714

One lower wing in place and the Starboard vertical tail added as well. The wing section will suffice as a wheel bay roof, though I may add front bulkheads to the nacelles. The undercarriage will be the most difficult part, but I may be able to do something that looks like the kit parts - the real thing was a bit different anyway! This is the one from the Italeri 217K that I will use as a guide, but on the 17E the cross braces were somewhat different.

DSC06716-crop

I have lost a couple of the seats so they will need replacing and a few radio boxes etc will need to be added together with floor, bulkheads etc. This will be a slow build I suspect.

 

Pete

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, PeterB said:

 The undercarriage will be the most difficult part, but I may be able to do something that looks like the kit parts - the real thing was a bit different anyway! This is the one from the Italeri 217K that I will use as a guide, but on the 17E the cross braces were somewhat different.

 

There is always an easy (but possibly expensive) way out.

 

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/SAC72120

 

If the undercarriage on my RS Models build turns to worms, that's the way I will be going. 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks guys,

 

Definitely need new reading glasses for this GB - second time I have posted in the wrong place:banghead:!

 

Considering the price the SAC u/c looks a bit bent in that pic - not a great advert for it. Good job it is a light kit!.

The real thing looked like this

17Eu-C-crop

SAC seem to have correctly moulded the frame above the front "vertical" legs which I won't be bothering with, but I see no ruddy mudguards so don't throw the kit ones away Enzo!

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, PeterB said:

 the SAC u/c looks a bit bent in that pic - not a great advert for it.

 

It's white metal, so par for the course.  Very easily fixed with a quick tweak. 

 

You should see some of the white metal locomotive kits I have in The Stash... 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Enzo,

 

Know what you mean about white metal - in my case it is mostly Aeroclub stuff, and actually I would love to see the locos as I have built quite a few over the years, but don't go to any trouble.

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

With only a month left I thought I had better make a start on this so I am going to do some work on the fuselage - this is what I have at the moment!

DSC06868-crop

Unlike the later models such as the Do-17Z the early ones did not have the deepened front section making a sort of gondola for the ventral gun, and therefore only had as fairly shallow floor. In fact Airfix have missed it out almost entirely mounting the front seats onto the fuselage and only provide a sort of "footboard" with the stick and pedals. They provide 2 seats of which only the right hand one for the navigator/bomb aimer has survived so I will be using one out of the spares box for the pilots seat. The Radio operator/dorsal gunner had a small circular seat squab mounted on a frame so that it could be folded away, presumably for when he was working the ventral gun, and that has been lost as well, as has the IP, though I do have a Yahu one for the IPM Do-215B which may fit with a bit of work. I will also make up a rear bulkhead. The one real problem will be the ventral gun but I may be able to fit that later to avoid it being broken - if not I will have to try and put some sort of shield round it to minimise the risk of damage.

 

More as and when.

 

Pete

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, no points for accuracy I guess but it now looks a bit more like it.

DSC06870-crop

It seems the D0-17 E/F were only 3 seaters, later versions added an extra crewman to work the added defensive guns presumably. I have installed a simplified version of the rear seat in the stowed position copied from an RS instruction sheet and added the floor, pilot's seat and IP so it is ready to go together now, remembering to trap the strange tailwheel that was used on all of the 17/217 family. I should still be able to add the ventral MG15 through the hole for the dorsal gun sing a pair of tweezers - I won't fit that until the wing complete with undercarriage is ready to go on. To the left is a sort of rear bulkhead which goes just behind the ventral gun position under the wing, with a hatchway to give access to the rear fuselage - again according to the RS kit.

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That went together fairly well. I will sort out the joints next.

DSC06872-crop

In the meantime I have made a start on the engines as you can see, and therein lies a slight quandary. Each assembly consists of a front together with two sides, between which a small radiator is trapped in a "tunnel" on the underside. I have also made and fitted some firewalls/bulkheads in front of the undercarriage bay. However, there are no exhausts, just a row of 6 holes down each side. Now I know that some early German aircraft with inline engines had "hidden" exhausts - an example if the early Ju-87 and Airfix have correctly modelled their B1 version with no stacks protruding, but the B2 reboxing has exhaust pipes sticking out. Clearly there must have been pipes and they had to go through the cowling to get the hot gas out, but pictures of the Do-17E are ambiguous as the exhausts are overhung by the top of the cowling and usually hidden by shadow. I see that the RS kit @Enzo Matrix is building provides pipes to insert from the inside, but he complains that they do not protrude and so intends to replace them with tubing, so that is what I have done, but (dare I say this) we might just be both wrong!:banghead: Certainly, if they did protrude at all it would not be by much so I have kept them short on the outside, and could always file them down if needed. Anybody got any definitive info?

 

Pete

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks V-P

Yes, that confirms that they did stick out just a tiny bit - mine are probably a little bit long so I will file them down.

 

Pete

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anyway, time to get the undercarriage built and on, so I scaled up a drawing, cut the "legs" to length and drilled some locating holes. On the kit the u/c fits into sockets at the side of the nacelles but I am going straight in to the lower wing which will act as a "roof" to the bay, though I have added some milliput to strengthen it. I have painted up the interior of the bay and the front of the engines as that may be visible through the slots on the top of the cowling.

DSC06874-crop

And now the engines are on. Whilst waiting for them to dry I did a bit of repair work. The Do-17/217 had large actuating arms for the rudders and elevators and in spite of the problems I had with the glue when I originally built the kit, all are still there bar one under the Starboard elevator. I found that a slightly modified No 25 staple was a pretty good replacement.

DSC06876-crop

Tomorrow I will make a start on fitting the main legs - the fact that my replacement AM wheels are "weighted" complicates matters slightly. I mentioned earlier the strange tail wheel on this family of planes - the whole "block" pivots on the 217 I believe as it has doors to close it off, but I suspect the one on the 17 was fixed.

 

Pete

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have made a start on the undercarriage. In the past I made models with the undercarriage down for a while, then with it up for quite a few years, and then went back to building it down, and at the same time I began to refurbish some of my old kits which involved scratch building the u/c. The ones I have done so far were the "easy" ones with single leg main gear, but this will be the first with twin main legs - the principle is the same but they are a bit more complicated as I have to add the various cross-braces, and mudguards where fitted. I use  AM wheels, or clones of existing ones.

 

The main weight carrying part is made from my collection of paperclips in various sizes and thicknesses and I usually add a length of plastic tube around them. This has a number of advantages-

1. It is easier to tack the braces in place with normal plastic cement which allows a bit of time to adjust them, and then once in place I can add a drop of CA glue for strength.

2. On many planes the oleo strut is visible and this can be created by a gap in the plastic tube, but in this case, as with many German planes, the oleo was covered by a flexible rubber gaiter which is represented by paint.

3. Whilst the top of the paper clip goes into a hole, the plastic tube is cut away so that it butts against roof or whatever which not only adds a little strength to the joint, but also allows some slight adjustment to the length as it is easier to shorten the tube that cut the clip with somewhat imprecise wire cutters.

 

So here is my starting point.

DSC06878-crop

I have bent the lower end of the clip to locate in the wheels, which are AM ones supposedly for the Do-17Z, and painted the bottom ends as it is easier to get at it before the wheels are fitted. And this is them dry fitted so I can get the wheels to sit on the flat - the wing is also just a dry fit at the moment,

DSC06879-crop

In the photo it looks like the starboard wing is a little high, but in fact it is the other way round when I measured it, so I adjusted the Port legs a touch, and then glued everything on. I then added the cross braces, mudguards and their braces.

DSC06882-crop

I just noticed that I have a different alignment on the mudguard struts on each of the wheels - oh bother!

 

The legs look a bit long but in fact are about right according to my plan, so I think the wheels might be just a little larger that expected - there is no reference to the Z having bigger diameter wheels than the E in my sources but it was rather heavier so maybe they were but I am not going to try and change anything - none of my kits are ever perfect! The E does look quite "long legged" in photos, though that may in part be due to the lack of depth at the nose compare with later versions.

 

That just leaves the support/retraction struts to fit behind the main legs. In the meantime I have started work on the doors - the kit came with both open and closed versions but the only ones I have now were the closed ones complete with a protruding part of the wheel so I have cut them up and removed the wheel. With luck the u/c should be finished by the weekend, the wing glued on and it will then be ready for paint.

 

I might just be close to finishing it by the deadline but I am not holding my breath! I have just realised I am short of the early pre-war style of crosses but I have just enough providing they work.

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As I mentioned earlier, I have a refurbishment programme in hand but have been avoiding kits like my Ki-21, Ki-49, and Ki-67 as they have twin gear legs, but it seems it might not be quite as hard as I thought, particularly as they have no ruddy mudguards AFAIK! Anyway, the undercarriage on this early Do-17 is done!

DSC06884

Incidentally, you can probably see a row of 6 small "pimples" under the belly which is I believe where the "towel rail" aerials should go if Airfix had bothered to provide them, and that reminds me of something that happened almost 40 years ago when we got out first cat. Never having had one before, when I noticed some small lumps on his belly one day, I was concerned they might be some sort of growth so I took him down to the vets. Fortunately the vet is a friend of mine, but imagine my embarrassment when he told me that male cats still have exactly the same number of nipples as a female, though of course they are non functional!:banghead: I will add some thin rails from stretched sprue later in the build. I need to put a little filler on the wing to fuselage joint and then it will be paint time. Must buy some more large paper clips!

 

Pete 

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 5
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...