¹⁄32

September MOM Winner

The Plane

The Fokker D.VII is considered the best German aircraft to see service during and following The Great War - hands down the winner of the First Fighter Trials held in January - February of 1918, it was soon produced by Fokker, Albatros and OAW factories (under license). Powered by 200 hp Mercedes D.IIIau, this OAW specimen displays key differences in the construction specific to Ostdeutsche Albatros Werke, scavenged parts from OAW planes often finding their way onto other Fokker D.VII, as popular replacements.

Early aircraft suffered from overheating and ammunition cook-off, so modification details such as raised Spandau guns, addition of louvers on the engine panels are representative of mid to late production aircraft. Many early D.VII flew their missions with engine cowlings removed as temporary solutions / field modifications.

The Kit

Limited Edition 1/32 Wingnut Wings kit 32030 is sadly sold out, but kit comes highly recommended to experienced and novice modelers alike. Cantilever wings require no rigging and minimal control wires / landing gear rigging should give novice modeler a gentle introduction to the world of Early Aviation "stringbags". Experienced modeler will yet find plenty of small details to sink their teeth into and there is a dizzying array of most colorful schemes available.

The box produces a lot of scrap parts for the spares box and leaves for a lot of possibilities for building late War aircraft - as resource strapped Germany struggled to keep up in the War, so did the ground crews had to get creative to keep even the best machines up and flying. The instruction manuals have some great examples of hodge-podge machines in service, captured aircraft and post-war examples.

My only recommendation is to seek strengthened landing gear / wing struts, as correct scale styrene parts leave for relatively weak construction to support the plane if often handling / transport is expected - aftermarket white metal parts remedy the issue.

The Build

Given the Wingnut Wings kit's nature, the build is straight up "Out of the Box" with only a few scratch built modifications. With almost no rigging, I've re-created the internal frame bracing wires in the cockpit (care must be given not to over-tension the frame, as it will twist the resulting fuselage), cables running to their respective controls and made spark plugs out of stretched sprue as the Mercedes D.IIIau is partially exposed by having one cowling removed.

The kit comes with "cookie-cutter" style pre-shaped wing, fuselage and tail lozenge decals - both in 4 and 5 color patterns. The lozenge rib tapes are part of lozenge decals so placement over molded rib tape details is critical - blue and pink rib tapes are included with the kit and are applied as second step, if the particular aircraft scheme calls for it.

The obvious draw of this particular aircraft is painstakingly re-created scheme of the aircraft that bore painting of Brothers Grimm' "The Seven Swabians" folktale along with other markings. Sadly, the aircraft survives as period photographs only - given the artistic value of the fuselage canvas alone, I will join Wingnut Wings in hoping that it will one day be found preserved in someone's attic!

The last touch was to mount the flare gun on the top wing and do the best to guess the angle at which the gun is mounted at - I didn't see the flare holders in the photos, so I didn't guess at their location (must be inside the cockpit) and have therefore left that detail out.

The Fokker D.VII gives the appearance of a "simple" plane at a glance, but Wingnut Wings will delight the eye with attention to smallest of details and most enjoyable build.