Fokker Dr.1 Dreidecker

What you see is what you get!

And boy! Do you get a lot! There are three wings in the box (obviously) and they are in one piece. No wing-joints to worry about, thankfully! The airframe is covered in a beautiful dark red and all the other components look to be of a high quality.

The main landing gear are attached to the fuse with eight plastic straps. Attached for ease of positioning, the wire struts and wheels are put in place, but the strut cladding and landing-gear "wing" are not attached at this stage.

There is also a hefty, fuel-proofed plywood tail-skid. I am surprised that this skid is not sprung in any way, either with a rubber shock-cord or an internal piano-wire reinforcement.

Preparation of the bottom wing is straightforward. Metal brackets have to be screwed to the upper surface to accommodate the inter-plane struts, the MonoKote had to be removed from the wing-bolt holes, and the wing-dowels had to be epoxied into place.

The wing dowels were too long (or the holes too shallow). If I had not test-fitted them I would have been in trouble trying to push them in until only a quarter-inch protruded. I shortened them a fraction before applying the epoxy.

The middle wing is prepared in almost identical fashion to the lower wing. There are metal brackets for the inter-plane struts on both sides of the wing, and angled brackets near the wing-root for the cabane struts.

Again, the wing-dowels had to be shortened a fraction before epoxying into place.

The upper wing was much more tricky to work on.

First, there were ailerons to attach. I actually thought this would be the worst part of the job, but it turned out to be quite easy. I followed the instructions in the booklet to the letter, and it was all over in half an hour!

Adding the aileron servos was a nightmare. The wooden rails into which the servo-covers are supposed to be screwed were inadequate and I had to add some wood. Then this wood had to be carefully relieved so as to allow the servos to fit.

All the while I was whittling away, I was just waiting for the knife to slip and slash through the Maltese Cross on the upper surface of the wing. Somehow I managed to avoid it.

Then another nightmare -- snaking the Y-cable and servo leads through the wing. Each connection and each joint hooked on each of the fourteen ribs..... Aaaargh!

I was able to make do with a Y-cable and the servo leads themselves -- no extensions needed.

The down-lead for the ailerons exited through a hole in the wing -- I added a rubber grommet for neatness.

Finally, the cabane and inter-plane struts could be added and the upper wing mounted. This aircraft is now starting to look the part! It is a pretty aeroplane, I think, and I can't wait to get it finished!

The stabilizer was epoxied into place and a weight placed on top to ensure the join stays fixed while the adhesive sets. The wings had to be attached for this task since the horizontal alignment of the stab is set by shooting a sight-line against the wings.

Alignment of the stab is checked with a thread pinned to the firewall. Thread tension is maintained constant by use of a weight on the end (a Zagi flight-battery, actually).

Visible here protruding from the trailing-edge of the stab are the six white CA-hinges that will be used to attach the elevator. The wings will have to come off for that job...

Elevators are attached to the stab with three hinges each. The elevators are independent, not joined by a wire or bar, and will be activated by separate pushrods, to be installed at a later stage in construction.

This looks like an area of weakness to me. The sub-trailing edge of the stab is robust enough, but the sub-leading edge of the elevators appear to be fairly small balsa stock, planed to an angle to allow movement. And it looks like fairly soft balsa too!

The Dr.1 does not have a separate fin and rudder. Instead, a classic Fokker-type "fully flying" rudder/fin is fitted. This rounded fin is hinged at the rear of the fuselage and the entire thing moves to give rudder-function.

I must say, I'd have been happier if this were atrtached a little more firmly than with only two CA hinges...

I drilled four holes in the firewall, installed blind-nuts and screwed the engine mount temporarily in place. A dead-center hole locator marked the mount for the mounting bolts and I drilled and tapped the mount to take 8-32 mounting screws.

While applying CA to the blind nuts I managed to get CA on the threads four separate times in a row, forcing me to remove and replace the blind-nut. Not once on each of four nuts, but four times the same nut!

The mount-fixing bolts protruded through the rear of the firewall by an eighth of an inch. I considered this unusual -- I've never seen that before. A quick check showed that the lowest bolt bore directly onto the front face of the fuel tank. That looked like a disaster waiting to happen. How many flights before vibration causes the bolt to eat a hole in the tank, and I get raw fuel sloshing around inside the fuse? A hacksaw and a needle file soon dressed that bolt down by an eighth of an inch!

And so, on went the Magnum 4-stroke (thanks Digital Man!). With a 420cc (14.2 oz.) tank, this should stay up for a while!

There's a lotof side/down-thrust built into this model. I hope I measured the engine-spacing correctly to get the cowl on!

Pictured here with a prop temporarily in place, and no muffler attached as yet. Taking this photo exposed me to great hardship! My dog caught me lying on the floor with my camera in hand and came over to investigate with predictable results!

With no little difficulty, I connected the control-linkage to the elevators and rudder.

In order to connect the elevator horns (one on each side) they had to be placed far enough out from the fuse so as to bite into the wood of the elevator and not overhang the angled inner edge. This required a sort of S-bend in the pushrods which will increase drag and decrease strength! Harumph!

The rudder horn was supplied with two 3/4" bolts. Unfortunately, the base of the rudder near the hinge-line is 3/4" thick, so the bolts were not long enough. I had to scour the island for a makeshift solution (2x20mm machine screw). The obvious solution would have been to relieve the rudder, but with the covering already applied...

Shown here with only one elevator linkage visible. Note that to avoid hole for one of the machine screws passing uncomfortably close to the edge of the surface, I had to re-drill the control horn and use the backplate upside down on the left elevator. The original, unused holes in the horn base-plate can be easily seen.

As can the "back wheel". ;-)

Three conventional Hitec/RCD HS-300 sports servos are accessed through the lower wing-mounting saddle. I used a 'snake' to the throttle instead of the solid pushrod supplied with the kit.

Notice the two individual push-rods for the two halves of the elevator. They are joined by two tightly fastened wheel-collars. I would be happier with a soldered joint or something more robust. But to solder these would be tricky. I don't want to put a torch down into the fuse!

There is quite a lot of extra room in the servo bay, and I would have liked to use a second separate servo on the other half of the elevator. This would have given me a more 'fail-safe' elevator and allowed for the possibility of clever mixing of the elevator with the ailerons. The closeness of the two pushrod outers in the fuse and their bias towards the throttle servo made that difficult, so I went with the recommended single-servo setup.

This photograph shows the fuel tank in place. Capacity is 420cc (just over 14 oz.) which should give this aircraft considerable endurance.

Note the two flexible pushrod 'snakes' visible in the upper part of the photograph. The lower one is the throttle linkage. The other 'snake' connects the carburettor choke to the cockpit.

Also visible are the four servo leads just awaiting a receiver, and the two wing-dowel holes (left) and two wing bolt holes (right) which are clearly visible. Tank access is through the middle-wing mounting saddle area, just forward the cockpit and under the guns. There is plenty of room under here, and the receiver and flight-battery will probably be located in this area.

A small block of greenish EPP at the rear of the tank takes care of any tendancy to move around.

The Dr.1 requires an unusual (for me, anyway) amount of plumbing. The tank is a three-line type, and the four-stroke Magnum has a crank-case breather nipple.

The crank-case breather line is in pale blue. The main fuel-line from the tank to the carburettor is in yellow and can be seen disappearing behind the needle-jet. The pinkish line is attached to the pressure nipple on the exhaust silencer. The red line with the knurled aluminum plug in the end is the fill-line.

Visible in this photo are three of the four hardwood blocks to which the cowl will be fixed. Also visible on the right, near one of the cabane-strut brackets, is the modified charge-receptacle into which the aileron down-lead will be plugged.

The fiddly trim-pieces on the landing-gear struts were a bit of a bear to attach cleanly, but I finally got it done with largeish blocks of balsa on the inside and copious amounts of CA to keep it all in place. I somehow think these little bits of trim will not be with us long! If and when I ever decide to replace them, I'll probably want to use balsa instead.

The 'wing' on the axle went on easily, and really looks good!

Yes, that is apprentice constructor and novice pilot Dottie asleep on the job in the background! (Ain't he sweet?)

The Fokker Dr.1 Dreidecker existed for one purpose only. To carry aloft a pair of synchronised Maxim LMG 08/15 'Spandau' machine guns. This model wouldn't be complete without them.

Made from wood and attached with CA, these are the final pieces to be fitted to this model. Frankly, I'm not too optimistic about their chance of survival in the rough-and-tumble world of model aircraft transportation and use, but here they are!

Carefully bundled in EPP foam sheeting, the Futaba 8-Channel Receiver is strapped to a small ply cross-brace. The brace prevents rearward movement, and since it is a snug fit between the interior fuselage walls, it prevents side-to-side movement too. The bulk of the Rx itself prevents forward movement, and the fuel tank beneath stops movement down into the fuse. The only way this unit is going to move is up and even then, the wing would have to be off, so it won't be shifting in flight!

A home-made 1,300 mAh NiMh four-cell pack is fitted firmly to the ply cross-brace that carries the wing-bolts for the lower wing. This baby isn't going to move unless the aircraft falls apart in mid-air!

And here it is, finished at last, and ready to fly!

The black Maltese crosses on the white wing and fuselage background and fully-flying rudder/fin assembly, classically framed against the glistening, dark red covering of the fuselage and wings, neatly counter-balanced by the spotless, white cowl and wheel-covers, and beautiful, scimitar-profile wooden propeller. Mmmm-mmm! Good enough to eat!

This rear-quarter view clearly shows the aerodynamically balanced 'around the corner' ailerons and round, fully-flying rudder which were common on so many of Tony Fokker's creations.

Glistening wings reflecting the clear, blue sky, the Fokker Dr.1 Dreidecker awaits only pilot Manfred, and someone to swing the prop!

Contact!

As usual, I don't get to add weight to the nose for balance, I have the pleasure of finding a way to add weight in the tail!

After a turn on the balance, I knew roughly what had to be added to the tail, so I made up a little mould from scrap pieces of wood. I even incorporated a raised strip to create a slot in the resulting ingot that would fit neatly over the tail-skid.

Melting the lead over a kitchen stove in an old tin can, I poured the lead into the mould. Be careful if you try this! The tiniest drop of water gets in your molten lead and you will experience an explosion at close quarters and be spattered with boiling metal as a reward! (No, I didn't find out the hard way. I'm an engineer! We know these things!) Molten metals have a high 'ouch' coefficient, so pulling a stunt like this in the buff is probably contra-indicated!

The secret to a nice, clean ingot is to get the moisture out of the wood. You will have started with tinder-dry wood to begin with, but there is always moisture in wood. The first pouring will hiss and bubble in a very alarming fashion. Give the ingot a few minutes to harden then knock it gently from the mould and return it to the melting pot. Repeat a few times until you pour and there is no hissing or bubbling or steaming. That is the one you keep! Leave it in the mould a couple hours to cool (don't try to hurry the process).

Shown here removed from the scorched mould, my tail-weight looks factory-bright. A wallop from a hammer has shaped it into a tailskid-like curve!

And here is the weight in place, held by a couple of rubber bands. When casting the ingot, I added a little more lead to the melting-pot because there is always a residue left in the pot after you're done. This ingot is probably a bit heavy now. Rubber bands will suffice for ground-balancing. Electricians tape will hold the weight in place for initial proving flights, and (assuming she lasts long enough) epoxy and strong heat-shring tube will form a more lasting fixture.

After early flights showed that this model was significantly tail-heavy (see details under Flying...) and even removing the carefully cast tail-skid ingot failed to fix the problem, I shifted some gear forward. The receiver doesn't weigh much and I didn't move it far, but I did shift it's position to the other side of the bulkhead on which it was originally attached.

Of more value was moving the flight-battery. This consists of four AA-sized Nimh cells and I was able to shift it forward by over 10".

As this photograph shows, it now sits directly behind the firewall, held in by a block of (bileous green) EPP foam padding. The fuel tank sits directly above it, preventing it from shifting when the aircraft makes aerobatic manoevers.

This guy started out as a standard fifth-scale Williams Bros. pilot. But the trouble is, there are plenty of pilots at our club that look exactly like him!.

Inspired by an article in the modelling press, I decided to see if I could do something about this.

First, I used a sharp #11 blade and sandpaper to remove Manfred's scarf and the collar of his flying-suit. Then the safety-straps were removed from his shoulders. Next the lines around his mouth were smoothed and his nose shortened and rounded. His eyes were made less Egyptian, the eyebrows made less prominent. And finally, his flying helmet was de-emphasized.

The resulting holes in the figure were closed with adhesive and fine-mesh cloth patches, praparatory to filling and shaping.

Here he is, wearing a green mud-pack!

Using polyester putty, I have filled the holes caused by whittling away his coat and scarf. All that remains of the coat now is the obvious shape of his neck. I can't whittle that away or his entire head will fall off! As it is I had to fill some holes in the back of his neck (not visible here).

I am also using the putty to change his face a bit. I've filled the creases between his mouth and nose a bit, and filled/broadened the nose. I didn't like his pointy-chinned face, so I have added putty to round out his jowls a bit, and I've also touched up the corner of his eyes a bit more.

The process of filling, whittling and sanding will continue...

...until the shape of his face suits my eye!

Seen here wearing a partially finished, hand-made, leather flying helmet prototype, the pilot sports a decidedly chubby face, shorter, broader nose, and shallower brow-ridges. His eyes are rounder, and the heavily-defined creases between the corners of his mouth and his nose are gone.

I considered giving him a cleft chin and a large, handle-bar moustache, but decided not to over do it with this pilot figure. All he needs now is to be painted properly, his goggles affixed to his face and a leather flying jacket placed around his shoulders.

Anyone know how to simulate sheep-skin?

Here he is with two coats of flat white as a base, followed by the first 'flesh' coat on the face and head.

I'm trying to achieve a euorpean pallor without settling for a flat pink. This is the face of a man who flies an open-cockpit aircraft that is not even fitted with a slipstream deflector, far less a windshield!

I have used several shades here, constructed of flat white with varying minute quantities of red and tan added to the mix. After this coat thoroughly dries and is sanded, I will apply another coat, reddening the lips and (possibly) blushing the cheeks. Obviously, the eyes also need seeing to...

My hands aren't as steady as they used to be and my eyes aren't the best either. So forgive the somewhat poor paintjob on Manfred's eyes. This is as far as I intend to take the paintwork on him. The skin tone is just the shade of pink tinged with outdoor tan that I wanted, and the mouth fractionally redder. The eyes will be concealed somewhat by the goggles, and the rest of his face will be covered by a silk scarf, so there is no point striving for perfection here.

A "Before and After" shot.

Less pronounced eyebrows ridges, less tear-drop-shaped eyes, broader, blunter nose, heavier jowls, and no deep-grooved lines from nose to corner of mouth. Somehow, I find the new face more believable than the original. Probably because it is unique, and not to be found in the cockpit of 1/5th scale aircraft around the world by the tens of thousands.

Notice how Manfred's shoulders had to be narrowed so he could fit into the cockpit of the aircraft without sitting centrally in the opening. This always strikes me as false -- any pilot would lean back against the rear rim of the cockpit, and historic photographs show that this was the norm.

Manfred's flying goggles took a bit of work. First they had to be trimmed and sanded to remove excess 'flash' on the moldings. Then, prior to the painting of the leather frames, a pin-vice was used to drill two small holes into the frame of the goggles at each corner.

I elected to use wire rather than rubber-bands, thread, or any other weak, perishable material for the strap for the goggles. Rather than use steel wire (which is likely to rust) I used strands of copper wire from a piece of electrical cable. Copper will blacken with age, but probably won't rot away. Wire straps are inserted and CA'd to the goggles. These wires will be twisted behind the pilot's head, and this crude fastening hidden under the leather flying-helmet. Goggles were probably worn over the helmet but this is a compromise I will live with.

Disaster! The goggles spontaneously shattered when the paint was drying! I had to glue them together again, which quite spoiled their appearance! :(

Here he is at last, fully dressed, and sitting in the cockpit, behind the twin 'Spandaus'. Hand-stitched leather flying-helmet and sheepskin flying coat, and a white, silk scarf muffling his entire face to protect it from the frigid blast of the prop, on a winter morning!

In the air, at the controls, and in his element!

One thing that these last two photos of the completed pilot figure shows, and that is this: There is no point spending two weeks on the face of the pilot, remoulding his features and carefully applying several coats of paint in varying hand-blended skintones... if you are then going to completely conceal his face behind flying goggles, helmet and scarf!

To tell you the truth, I had a load of fun working on Manfred, and I'm delighted with how he turned out. But from now on, I think I will reserve this level of detail for pilots sitting in an enclosed cockpit, so that it would make sense leaving his face exposed.

Never the less, although few can tell how much work went into the face of this little pilot, I know what he looks like under the warm clothing, and I find myself smiling when ever I look at him!

As supplied, the cockpit is a simple circular cut-out in the upper deck of the fuselage, with a shallow, balsa floor. It is unfortunate this floor wasn't any deeper, as this would have given more scope for interesting scale detailing. However, there is a bulkhead/former under the front part of the cockpit which is probably why the floor is so shallow. (But did this former have to be in that exact position?)

I decided that the cockpit would be the ideal spot for certain controls necessary for the model to work. The large, circular hole in the front portion of the cockpit (left of photo) is for a remote glow-igniter. Behind this are two rectangular cut-outs for the radio On/Off switch and the battery-charge receptacle. These are each bracketed by a pair of screw-holes.

At the right of the cockpit (top of photo) is the exit point for the remote engine choke 'snake'. This has been reinforced with a circular 'button' made from lite-ply. In actual fact, despite grouping these controls on either side of the underlying bulkhead (which runs approximately along the left pair of pencil-marks) the whole cockpit floor is made of such soft, light balsa that I doubt it will survive much rough-handling of the controls. Instead of just a circular ply reinforcing for the remote choke, I should have reinforced the entire floor of the cockpit.....

Supplied with the kit was a transfer of the instrument panel, showing the three instruments. This was an interesting and useful component, but used as directed would have resulted in a flat, featureless control panel. I decided to remedy that situation.

I fabricated an instrument panel in three parts as shown in the photograph. Outermost, was a 1/64th ply facia. Behind that, a sheet of clear acetate, and then another ply panel, 1/16th thick. Combined in a sandwich, these create a wooden-faced instrument panel with inset 'glass' instrument covers. The third layer then adds some depth to the panel as a whole.

Here is another shot of the cockpit, with the floor now reinforced with a thin ply doubler, and liberally fuel-proofed with a coat of epoxy, thinned with alcohol. This strengthened cockpit floor can now bear the working strain of the controls. Note also the instrument panel in place at the front of the cockpit.

The completed cockpit, awaiting the arrival of the pilot!

Seen from behind with the coaming in place, this cockpit displays characteristic 'scale' dirt. In other words, I should have cleaned up a bit before taking this photograph. Notice the instrument panel, with glass-fronted instruments.

Closest to the instrument panel and concealed under a pivoting cover, is the remote glow-igniter. Behind that and closer to the pilot are (left to right) the charge receptacle, the on/off switch, and the round knob for the remote carburetor choke.

The floor of the cockpit is covered with a piece of black leather(ette) which, due to the shallow nature of the cockpit floor, takes on the appearance of a tonneau cover.

Mid-wing mounting saddle (with servo leads dangling out) is visible in front of the cockpit.

The Magnum 80 was broken in exactly as recommended by Magnum, with 20% castor FAI fuel. At the end of two tank, the tacho showed 10,300 RPM on a tuned burst of power.

Prop-wash alone will lift the tail. I don't anticipate any trouble getting this one into the air once the motor is properly tuned!

I managed to destroy one of my nice wooden props before the machine left the yard (far less the ground). Careless handling of tools near the spinning prop and there was a tiny impact... Prop bust! Could have been worse -- could have been my finger instead of a spanner!

The first flight-attempt was nearly a disaster!

Despite being balanced exactly according to the makers recommendations, the Fokker left the ground under the control of Test Pilot Rudy, who immediately declared he had very little control. He put it down in the tall grass, fortunately avoiding all sticks and rocks that might be hiding therein. Assessment was that the CoG was too far aft. The flight was so brief that no photographs were taken.

By the time the aircraft was recovered and checked for dammage, it was getting too dark for another test flight, so the next test flight was put off until the following day.

After removing the carefully cast tail-skid weight, the aircraft was started and taxied out for another run. She took off easily, but although things were much better than the day before, it was obvious that the aircraft was still suffering from a bad case of tail-heaviness. Still, Test Pilot Rudy was able to maintain control well enough to take her up high, and with full down-trim, make a very shakey circuit. She had a tendancy to wobble in an alarming fashion, and a couple times there, I thought it was gone. The entire club-house was in hushed silence... torn between the drama of trying to get her down safely and the sheer beauty of this aircraft in the sky.

In the golden light of a fading sunset, Rudy set up for an approach, with loads of contradictory advice from a number of barstool pilots, which I am happy to say, he wisely chose to ignore.

With the four-stroke power-plant throttled right back, the high-drag airframe caused the Fokker to lose height rapidly, and Rudy had it judged perfectly to make an approach to our grass strip.

And this photograph is what it's all about.

Caught on late finals, with the sunlight glinting golden on the fuselage, the leaders streamers clearly visible trailing from the bottom plane, the prop swinging slowly and Manfred hunched over the controls as he peers over the Spandau guns, the Fokker settled smoothly onto the strip without a bounce, and rolled out under control to come to a stop next to the edge of the strip. The entire crowd breathed a sigh of relief, Rudy poured himself a stiff one, and confessed that he thought he'd "lost it" a few times. Much praise for the beautiful model and the hair-raising display of expert piloting that brought it home safe and sound despite an obviously unstable CoG position. Thanks, Rudy!

Those who know me will know that when I build a model, I am satisfied if it lives long enough to allow me to get a nice in-air photo. This shot is the one. It's all gravy from here!

Conditions need to be just right to test-fly this model, and rather than risk the model with unsuitable winds or something, I took my good time and with the help of my trusty test-pilot Sam, tweaked the CoG and fiddled with the settings on this bird. We've finally got it where we think it should be, (except I think I'll put a bit of exponential on the controls so as to de-sensitize the sticks near neutral).

This is a picture of the Dr.1 (Sam piloting) playing "chicken" with the photographer (me). Look closely at the ailerons and the bank of the aircraft, and you'll see he chickened out before I fired the shutter!

Here's another nice shot of the aircraft making a fairly low pass for the camera. It's unfortunate that as the winds die down making for best conditions for test-flying this model, the light also fades making for short flights and poor photographic conditions!

Another nice shot of her making a down-wind pass low and slow for the camera.

Well, she's sorted now, so there shouldn't be as much need for ideal conditions for flying. Not that I'll want to fly this every day, or under adverse conditions (not to mention that it's a bear to get it into my Suzuki along with my co-pilot), but it should get some more air-time now!

I was going downwind, pulled it vertical, chopped the throttle, and gave it a boot full of rudder with the rates on high.

Instead of rotating 180° as expected, it did a complete rotation, then another half-turn (540° total). This took me by surprise, and I hesitated for a second, before I realised the aircraft was now dead-stick, pointing vertically down.

I pulled the nose up, and tried to glide back to the field, but I just didn't make it. The main gear caught in the top of a wild tamarind, the aircraft flipped around, and hit the ground backwards.

Not many people can say they crashed their model into the ground tail-first!

The rear of the aircraft is stick-built for reduced weight. Those sticks didn't stand up to the crash too well. There was also some minor damage to the elevator, but nothing that a dab of CA and a piece of MonoKote wouldn't be able to fix!

This shows the damage a little better. Several structural members snapped clean through, and several others have 'green-stick' fractures.

First, I cut away the damaged MonoKote and then I repositioned all the broken bits back together again and clamped them, so the airframe was back in the correct shape. Then I applied thin CA and allowed it to wick into all the cracks, locking the pieces back into their original shape.

Next, I added doublers behind every break, and also a series of gussets to reinforce the various joints.

This photo, taken before the last piece of new MonoKote was added shows some of the doublers and gussets. You can clearly see a half-round gusset deep inside the fuse, Triangular gussets are also visible on the left of the photo, and if you look closely you might even see some in the side away from you.

Also clearly visible is the white antenna (which was not damaged) and the three gray pushrod outers (two ELE and one RUD). One of the elevator pushrods was badly bent, and no amount of straightening would make it run freely, so I replaced both the elevator pushrods.

As mentioned above, new elevator pushrods were installed. These were joined just behind the servo with a component I made by soldering together two brass inserts from a regular electrical screw connector. A third wire runs through both halves of this, and is bent for connection to the servo.

You can clearly see the two pushrods exiting the gray outer tubes at the top left, and passing through the brass connectors. The third wire is bent into a U-shape, and one half of the U passes through each brass connector. One arm of this U-shaped piece is then bent down and attached to the servo arm with an Easy-link.

This arrangement allows each pushrod to be held in place with two separate screws. Previously, the the wires were passed through two wheel-collars (see photo above). If those two grub-screws slackened, you would lose elevator function on one side. The new arangement similarly retains elevator function on one side if two screws on that side slacken. The advantage to this arangement is that the pushrods remain straight, and can be removed for inspection or lubrication if needed. Previously, to remove either pushrod the end had to be cut, which prevented it from being reused.

When everything was finally put back together, I fired up the transmitter to check that the control functions were working. And indeed, they were! It was the throttle that wouldn't work!

Typical, isn't it? The barrel in the up-draught carburetor had stuck, and I had to remove the engine from the mount to get the carb off. Then, no amount of carefully applied force would make the barrel turn. Eventually, after soaking in penetrating oil overnight, I applied heat with a huge soldering iron, and the barrel finally freed up.

The carb was then reattached, and the engine reinstalled.

You thought my problems were over? No, they weren't.

An attempt to start the engine produced no results other than an unusual chuffing noise, the exact sound of which varied with the throttle setting. A friend suggested a stuck valve. I removed the tappet pan and had a look.

It wasn't a stuck valve. It was the cam follower on the inlet that was stuck in the raised position, and was holding the inlet valve open. That explained the chuffing. Air was simply being drawn back and forth through the carburetor when I cranked the engine.

As this picture shows, I had to remove the tappets/rockers and the inlet pushrod, and pour penetrating oil down the pushrod tube. After soaking overnight, I then brought out the huge soldering iron again, and heated the crankcase where the cam follower was located, while pressing down on the pushrod. Eventually, the follower freed up.

The next problem was where to get .04 and .10 metric feeler guages from to reset the gaps on the tappets!

And here she sits, in the bright sunshine of a nearly cloudless day, just waiting to get aloft!

This shot really doesn't show you the tail -- where the repairs took place. Never the less, I think you will have to admit, she looks as good as new...

This shot gives a better view of the repairs. If you look closely, you can just make out the slightly darker covering of the repaired area, behind the Maltese cross on the side of the fuse. The line separating the new piece from the old is not straight; it is shaped a bit like this: > with the point just about level with the horizontal bar of the cross.

This was actually colour matched MonoKote, but the aeroplane has been exposed to sunlight and has faded, whereas the new MonoKote has never seen the sun before.

And here she is, in a clear blue sky, doing what she does best! I love this aeroplane, and I hope I can continue to fly it for a while. The takeoff roll was about 15 feet, and that is with about 60% throttle.

Do you see that sky? It was that kind of day.

I put on a bit of a display for the lads, with some low, slow passes with the 4-stroke just a-phut-phut-phutting along. Throttle? About 35%. Plenty of "Ooohs" and "Ahhhs" as I watched the windsock out of the corner of my eye. The wind was fairly low, and not gusting, but there was the occasional veer to the north that I didn't want to sneak up on me.

Isn't this a lovely shot? I always wish I could fly and take photographs at the same time. Thankfully there are fellows that will click the shutter for you!

And finally, back to earth.

The photographer kept saying "Closer! Closer!" So I obliged. Eventually he shouted "Not that close!" and I touched the rudder to straighten up a bit, and let the wheels gently kiss the ground. Rollout about 30', then a nice turn and taxi back to the apron.

Nice one! Pity I went and broke it again on the next flight...

Ok, so there's no point owning it if you don't fly it. And if you fly it you will, from time to time, break it.

The engine suddenly stopped at about 50' right at the upwind end of the strip. (You gotta put gas in it if you wanna fly it, dumbass!) There was no turning back. Unfortunately, there was no soft grass to land in either, thanks to the recent attentions or one of COW's bulldozers. So I glided it down into a nice field of stones.

As this picture clearly shows, the landing gear 'wing' struck something unyielding (AKA 'rock'). Then the Dreidecker did what Dreideckers are famous for: it flipped over on it's back.

Another shot of the landing gear 'wing'.

The actual damage desn't look too bad, but do you see that wrinkle in the MonoKote that runs diagonally from the axle to the leading edge? That worries me. We'll see what happens when I get the wing removed from the aircraft and the MonoKote stripped.

And it doesn't take a genius to see that the struts are bent. I'll have to take these off and see if I can straighten them. If not, replacements are still available from Tower at US$16-ish.

Of course, when it rolled over, the top wing was bruised a bit. This picture shows the sort of scrapes and lacerations that contact with coralstone can induce. These are minor. I might simply put a MonoKote patch over them without even removing the damaged MonoKote underneath.

This slightly more serious blemish on the leading edge will have to be fixed a little more carefully. I'll cut away a small piece of the surrounding MonoKote, glue the splinters back into place (adding small pieces of scrap balsa if needed) and then recover the area with a small patch.

Here is the entire landing gear assembly, removed and disassembled. A pleasant surprise was to discover that the wire struts were not bent much at all! Rather they were sprained or sprung out of alignment. As soon as I unscrewed the 16 undercarriage straps, the struts sprang back into shape. The mildest force between two fingers of each hand, and the one tiny bend was straightened.

There were a couple of those undercarriage straps that would need to be replaced though... One badly bent and one completely broken in two.

The problem of the loose axle that has plagued me for many months remains, of course. This would be the time to fix it, if I could only figure out how to do so. This problem causes the axle to rotate in the struts. Since the undercarriage wing is attached to the axle, this rotation allows the incidence angle of the sub-wing to change. The aircraft continues to fly fine and it isn't even very unsightly because it isn't all that noticable, but it is annoying!

I cut away a rectangular piece of MonoKote to reveal the broken wood. It is soft balsa sheet which I cut away to leave a clean opening. There was a notch out of the hard balsa leading edge, so I squared up that as well.

The broken piece lay between the end rib and the first rib in. Thankfully the ribs themselves were spared. The underside of the wing is flat-bottomed, so I can cut a rectangular piece of 1/16th sheet and glue it into place to effect the repair.

There is some bruising to the right, which I will treat with steam and filler before recovering.

There are also some blemishes on the top side of the wing, to which I will apply CA to seal any fine cracks, then steam and fill. The diagonal wrinkle in the MonoKote proved to be nothing more than that. Phew!

Here is the sub-wing (upside-down) with the woodwork complete. You can see the little block I glued into the notch in the LE, and the new sheeting on the bottom surfce of the sub-wing.

Below that, in the same photograph, you can also see the main wing of the aircraft with a couple of blemishes repaired. All that remains now is the application of MonoKote patches. A friend suggested I apply a line of patches, to simulate bullet-hole repairs. But who could believe that ein Engländer could get close enough?

Here is the undercarriage, ready to be resoldered to prevent the wandering angle of incidence of the sub-wing. The strut and axle have been cleaned and re-tinned, awaiting final assembly and soldering. You see the little pile of old wire shards that tenaciously clung to the strut. It was quite a task getting this crap off! I managed to burn myself twice with my biggest soldering iron!

When I get this soldered, will the joint break loose again on the first landing? Probably.

Tootling about during the club Fun-fly on 23rd September, I was running downwind when the left wing went down a little. I corrected with right aileron, but no response. The the left roll became more pronounced, and when I realised I had full right aileron at high rates with no effect, I cried out "She's gone! She won't answer the helm!" Fellow club members turned to watch, as I pulled the throttle back to idle, and watched her corkscrew down at a steep angle. I tried countering the roll with rudder (not very effectively) and every time she came upright, I tugged up on the elevator to slow the plunge. In this way, I was able to get her almost level before she went into the wild tamarinds, about 100M out.

I marked the point where she went in against the skyline, showed the marks to a recover team, and set off in search. A search team wasn't really necessary, because I walked straight to it.

This is what we found.

As seen in the failing light and with only a cursory examination, we have the entire rear of the fuselage, completely shattered. The elevators and rudder are OK, but the stab is broken into two separate pieces. The starboard lower wing is sheared off completely, and there is a small bite out of the port upper wing.

There is a small hole in the side of the fuse, right alongside the cockpit, which would indicate a dead pilot. And the gear looks to be on crooked, which either means busted gear, or more fuselage damage.

Everyone says it's repairable, and they are correct, but it would be no small effort. Before I make any decisions, I need to sleep on it for a few days, as well as give the aircraft a more thorough examination in good light, to catalogue all the damage.

To tell you the truth, I'm not looking forward to doing the repairs, in particular the wing snapped in half. Or the rear end smashed to matchwood, for that matter! With no plans to look at or anything. If I do repair it it's because I am not ready to let this model defeat me so easily! But to tell you the truth, I've got my eye on an Adrian Page Gee Bee Z...

The entire tail was smashed from the fuse. I released the pushrods and the entire tail just came off. The elevators and rudder are undamaged, but the stab is broken clean in two.

And this is where she's broken from. Pretty badly broken, but it would be possible to reconstruct the structure. (I don't think this is one of those cases where you can jigsaw it back together with CA!)

The undercarriage was buckled as well, even though the sub-wing was not damaged.

I have worked on the gear before, and it might be possible to straighten this out. The trouble is, I think the ends of the gear may have been pushed up into the fuse a bit as well, requirinf some woodwork in that area, too!

Looks like some serious .303 rounds went into the cockpit! The pilot would be dead of course, but a repair shouldn't be too hard, if it should be decided a repair should be attempted!

There is also some damage to the bottom of the fuse, as seen here. Not too bad, but not exactly straightforward. The die-cut parts that make up the main strength of the aeroplane are broken up, and would have to be jigsawed, and doubled.

The leading edge of the top wing was crunched, right at the Maltese Cross. I believe this could be repaired without extreme surgery. I'll have to cut away the MonoKote and splintered wood and see if the damage is more extensive than it appears.

The tip of the bottom wing was crunched, and the inter-plane strut bracket ripped from the mounting-point. The tip is a shaped rib, which might be repairable, but would probably be fairly simple to replace entirely

But here is the real damage to the lower wing. It has snapped clean in two! Funnily enough, it does not appear that any of the ribs were broken, but each of the spars would have to berejoined, and this would probably require some extensive excavating of the ribs to remove the old spars back a few bays from the break, so that new material could be scarf-joined into place.