Greetings folks;
Our good man in the Netherlands Oblt. Nico (Kitboy) Teunissan has organized a group build for autistic young modelers. After having shown them around a full sized replica he had them do some modeling.


". . .Mentioning the build of Fokker DVII bij SMER by an autistic youngster, who participates in the ModelClub of my work (Centre for treatment of autism). I got some nice reactions, and at some point it resulted in the visit of the Aerly Birds Foundations by five of these youngsters. All of 'm being able to have a seat in the cockpit of this DVII.

Three of these youngsters got very enthusiastic about this aircraft and wanted to build a Fokker DVII for their own!! This made me start a project. We were going to build a Fokker DVII together, step by step on my instructions. For this I also intended to improve their modelling skills.

For this I choose the Revellogram 1/48 scale example. One of 'm is actually from Revell and the other three are Monogram issues, gently donated by fellow WW1 builder Paul Thompson.

One youngster makes the Revell version, another younster and I are making versions which I took from Eduard issues, including the Lozenge, for which I am gonna use from Pegasus and at last one is doing a Dutch version with Meatballs. These are the results so far: . ."






"...There is a special story why I like to show this one. As a daytime job I work in psychiatry with youngsters (age 15 untill about 20) who are autistic, but have a normal intelligence. My profession is jobtrainer in a specialized training centre. About half a year ago I started a modelclub. And every week on thursday afternoon, me together with 5 younsters, are scalemodelling. One youngster was thinking about joining the club, but did not want to spend any money at first instance. But I still had a kit of a DVII lying around from SMER, which I was very unlikely ever to build. But he liked it and made a start. I did warn him, it's not the easiest kit to start with (poor fit and so on). Anyway, he did show to have talent for it. Since he was doing quit well, I even gave him a set of Dutch Decals, to turn it into a decent Dutch DVII. The decals in the kit were for a tsjech version, but were awfull. . ."

". . .Now something about this particular airplane. Number 266 was the 17 th DVII delivered to the LVA (LuchtVaart Afdeling; Air Department) of a total of 72 pieces. It was put in service on the 5th of may 1920. the first batch of Dutch DVII's were fitted with a 160 HP Mercedes DIII engine. This aircraft was used in the 1920's a lot for weather flights (the Dutch DVII which can be found in Holland nowadays has the same serial number). But it's best known achievement was that it participated in a stuntteam together with 4 other DVII's on an airshow at Göthenburg (SWEDEN), where they won the first prize. This stuntteam was known as the "Vijf Vinger" (Five Vingers) and was active with DVII's until they were replaced by Fokker C5's int the early 1930's. . . During it's career the 266 made 5 emergency landings. And was, as can be imagined, repaired a lot. Due to tornado in 1933 is was pushed against a hangar. It used three engines (the latter two being BMW's). It was taken out of service in 1935 "

Our man in the cockpit of a modern replica at the Early Aviation Foundation .







". . .As anyone can read in this thread the build of SMER's Fokker DVII resulted into an invitation for the ModelClub of my work to the "Aerly Birds Foundation". We paid them a visit last wednesday. Not only the builder of the DVII went, but also 4 other younsters of the club. We had a very nice tour in the "Early Birds Hangar". Our host Willem, gave the youngsters a very fine explanation of the development of the earliest days of aviation.

Highlight of the day was the possiblity to take place in the cockpit of their Fokker DVII. Pictures were taken plenty, but because of privacy regulations I can only show pictures with me taking place in the cockpit. I sure had a swell day. . ."

Thanks Stephen, you already placed it on this side

Greetings, Nico

Forgive me friend Nico. There is something exciting about your work here. Having a son with special needs I am most impressed with your efforts. Mr. Thompson that donated the four D.VII kit has my admiration as well as the Early Aviation Foundation too!

You have found a way to give back to the community using your hobby. What can I do to help?

Hello Stephen,

There is no need to "forgive" you. I't s nice to see you react so positive about this project.

About Paul Thompson, well he is more or less in the same situation as you are. His oldest son is autistic, and Paul is of course very enthusiastic about my work. He came to live in the same town as me half a year ago (Arnhem), and we became good friends since then. Very nice to have a co-ww1 builder so nearby cause there is few of them in our country. So far I learnt a lot from him.

Regarding you offer to help. Very nice, but to be honest I don't see exactly how at this moment. We got all the stuff we need, but suggestions are welcome of course:).

Nice to mention is the fact that we started a new project. It is not WW1 related, but WW2. The institution I work for is situated in a place called Oosterbeek. In the 2nd world war very fierce fighting took place at Oosterbeek when operation Market Garden was going on in september 1944. Each year Oosterbeek get's visited by veterans (although this group is decreasing now) and people from the UK. During september almost each shop in Oosterbeek has it's window dressed up with items concerning the remembrance of Market Garden.

I few months ago I made a deal with a bookstore on the mainstreet to have it's window filled with scale models of most of the aircraft used for the Airborne landings near Oosterbeek. This models will exhibited the whole month of september and build by our youngsters. A C47 Skytrain is well on it's way:



And here some work on a Short Stirling:


Other model which are worked on are: Hamilcar (resin model I build myself), a Horsa, Halifax and a 1/16 scale "Red Devil" (British Paratrooper). Our main focus is British. Americans were also involved (and a lot more succesfull then the british to be honest), but there landings were a lot more to the South.


Greetings, Nico Teunissen

Hello,

It's a few months later now, the models are finished and exhibited in a cabinet at the main building of my work. I made a small display together with two Eduard- and two Aurora figures.



The youngsters sure enjoyed the build, but most of them confirmed they found it hard to build a biplane. Quit some assistent was needed, but it worked out fine. All of 'm continued two WW2 stuff now.





I updated the kits by using Eduard decals for two of them. All of the DVII's got Eduard propellors.




The one one with the meatballs is a Dutch Navy variant.



Greetings, Nico Teunissen

Great build Nico! Your gentlemen have a lot of talent! Thanks for sharing this. Whats next Sopwith Camels?

I only wish.......... Main interest of 'm is World War 2.

Nico