Red Baron (Fokker DR1) fighter plane model kit
Welcome to this site which follows the building of the Fokker D1 kit, produced by Hachette Partworks Ltd.
This site is in memory of my father who was an inspiration in things mechanical, technical or electronic.
About the project:
Development of this site was mainly for two reasons. Firstly as a result of an interest in computing and my wish to venture into building and publishing a website. Secondly a long standing interest in aircraft (mostly WWII) and a past interest in model making. The latter moved to me consider the building of the HACHETTE magazine plane kit (which was introduced in the early part of 2004). This kit appeared to offer the prospect of being a reasonable challenge to build and of a satisfying scale (1:8 - model dimensions = width 35inches (90cm) length 28 inches (72 cm) height 15 inches (37 cm)).
Availability of this kit is said by the publishers (HACHETTE) to be Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Malta Malaysia and Singapore, as well as the UK. If this is the case, then this will not be a rare model, specially if most of them are built!
It is my intention to publish the major stages of the build on this site (mistakes and other disasters if they arise will be included). I also intend providing useful tips on the construction of this model and if I discover ways to prevent disasters, or to recover from problems which may arise from the construction (or the parts supplied) I will include this information.
This site was built with MS Front Page 2000,on a PC which was recently a self build project (also a first for me) and based on a Pentium 4 (2.4 Gigahertz) CPU. Pictures were taken with the first of my two digital cameras, which is a Fujifilm Finepix MX=2700 (2.3 megapixel).
Review of the kit and associated items:
The HACHETTE Red Baron's Fokker DR1 triplane fighter kit in question, was announced in the UK, in TV advertisements and was initially widely available within newsagents. Taking advantage of "subscription" for the weekly issues, will hopefully ensure the availability of each subsequent issue (with the addition of a few "gifts" which were offered if you subscribed). HACHETTE e-mail address is fighterplane@woodgt.co.uk.
This will not be a cheap project for a static (non-flying) model aircraft and will take a period of some 2 years to complete (due to the issuing of parts on a weekly basis). It will cost around £400, that is assuming you already have some of the basic tools and equipment. From examination of some of the pictures of the non-covered model (see above) the level of detail is impressive, and will require a reasonable skill level to do justice to the model (although the publishers describe the kit as "easy to build".
The individual Magazine issues did initially appear somewhat "light" in their content, but there will be 100 issues and the various sections and some of the archive pictures are interesting. Content includes historical information, photos of the men (notably Manfred Von Richthofen, the Red Barron himself) their machines, in addition to technical data for the Fokker DR1 and other aircraft of the period. The sectional diagrams of the various planes featured are informative. The pictorial and written instructions for the build itself are clear and easy to follow - So far.
Construction materials include die-cast alloy parts (such as the rotary engine and guns and some wing parts, and laser cut ply wing assemblies. The laser cut items have been notably cleanly and accurately cut and are amazingly easily and cleanly removed from the ply sheets supplied. So far the pieces have fitted extremely well together. At the time of writing, the construction (as limited as it is so far) has been very satisfying and I am looking forward to the rest of the build.
If you are currently considering undertaking building this model, or have already started building the kit with the parts supplied so far, I wish you every success. I would welcome hearing from you as to your progress and of any problems you may encounter with this build project.
21 May 2004