fokker Dr-1

[squirlye]

Has anybody had any sucess making the 200 series Fokker Dr-1 fly with rubber power? I have 2 unbuilt triplanes, And I want to see if It will fly rubber power. The other one I might kit bash it or build it for R/C. I have been watching Mitch's posts, and his ability to build the Guillows planes fairly stock and getting them to fly is really impressive. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Mitch]

NO... at least not yet

In my Stearman kit (unbuilt), the instuctions say for rubber power sand all pieces to half thickness. I take that bit of info and translate it to... recut wing ribs out of 1/32 sheet, reduce the internal material in the fuselage frames, and make my own tail with the lamination method. Moreover, I will not use kit paper or decals. I will use LITE tissue in Medium blue, White tissue for patches and cut my own crosses from Black tissue. This will be lighter, look better and last longer...

In Don Ross' book he describes how these kit maufacturers make the kits easy for assembly for the average modeler. As we get better, and if you want them to fly better (Or just fly) you NEED to make improvements in the kit youself.

I would prefer to have a "Runway" for the plane. I plan to use a sheet of plywood, as it will be hard for me to hand launch a WW1 plane as I do my WW2.

Keep the faith... I believe these planes were engineered to be able to FLY ... Mitch

[Wildpig]

What Mitch said...

If your DrI kits are the Laser cut, I would expect a reasonable chance to get it to fly on rubber power. Those kits tend to have a better grade wood. The old die-cut kits will probably fly too. But, you will need to try every trick in the book to lighten the weight.