1/48 Eduard Fokker D.VII (OAW)

Gallery Article by Mike Muth on July 22 2016

 

      

The Fokker D.VII is widely considered the best German fighter airplane of WW I. The design was so successful that production was farmed out to Fokker's competitors, OAW and Albatros. The OAW built Fokkers were covered in either 4 or 5-color lozenge fabric. A familiar feature on the OAW Fokkers was a dark green cowling with mauve/lilac patches on the forward fuselage. The D.VII had a cooling problem and each factory that produced the airplane came up with their own way of providing for additional cooling for the engine, often including louvers that would allow air to flow through the engine area. There are other variations between OAW D.VIIs and those built by Fokker and Albatros that are gone over in great detail in the Datafile 3 volume Fokker D.VII Anthology.

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Eduard has produced the best 1/48 D.VII and allows for almost all of the cooling variants with 6 possible fuselage choices with the most common optional side panels in its deluxe "Royal Class" boxing that included enough parts to build 3 D.VIIs. There are all sort of goodies like PE parts for the cockpit and a replica Blue Max medal. There are decal options for 12 different aircraft: 4 OAW built, 4 Fokker built and 4 built by Fokker's main rival, Albatros. For awhile Eduard used a lozenge fabric that had a small brown fleck on it to simulate a toning down of the lozenge. In this boxing they provide for flec and flecless lozenge. I chose the 4 color flecless lozenge.

There are all sorts of flamboyant color schemes applied to the D.VIIs but I chose to do a relatively sedate one from Jasta 37: 4 color lozenge fabric covering the top and bottom wings as well as the fuselage, a black script "R" on the fuselage sides and center of the top wing, a thin black band encircling the fuselage behind the "R" and diagonal black and white stripes on the horizontal tail surfaces. In addition the struts, undercarriage struts and wheel covers are done in black and white. I have found it best to apply a gloss coat of deep blue before applying any lozenge decals. The kit is straightforward to build, with the only really difficult part being the rather fiddly nature of the undercarriage struts. No rigging to speak of, so this plane shouldn't scare away those in the biplane avoidance crowd who fear rigging.

Mike Muth

Photos and text © by Mike Muth