Fokker D8 (oz3601)

About this Plan

Fokker D8. Free flight scale by MF Hawkins. Model Aircraft, September 1961.

Quote: "The lively and extremely tough little free-flight scale job that attracted so much attention at the Nats. Fokker D8 by MF Hawkins.

This year I had one month in which to build a model for the Super Scale Trophy at the Nationals, so a simple, flyable subject with a bright colour scheme was called for. Here is my answer. Although usually known as the DVIII (D for 'Doppledekker'), this plane is correctly titled the E.V (E for 'Eindekker'). It is one of the few aircraft that appears to have been designed with the scale modeller in mind - we should be grateful to Reinhold Plats.

Construction: Wings: Ribs are made by the sandwich system. The spars are pinned down onto the plan, with the dihedral braces, which are placed under rib 9. This will give the correct washout at each tip.

The wing fixing consists of rubber bands, which pass through a 1/4 in dia paper tube inside the centre section. The bands are fixed over the wing rests, using the hook shown on the plan to thread them through the tube.

Cover the wing with lightweight Modelspan, give two quick coats of dope, then pin down for 48 hours. This will prevent warps.

Tail: Pin clown after covering and doping as with the wing. Aluminium hinges should be stiff so that trim will not be accidentally upset.

Fuselage: All the wire struts should be tinned where necessary, the wing struts should then be threaded through the fuselage frame and the undercarriage bound on with fuse wire and soldered. The struts are then hound to the frame with thread and well cemented. The 1/32 in sheet fuselage sides are cut slightly oversize and slit, so as to slip over the wing struts. The wing rests can now be soldered on to the struts and should be lined up to have a slight positive angle of incidence, with the fuselage top. Strut fairings are attached with Evo-Stik.

The engine mount is cut to suit the motor, well braced to the front former and the tank cemented beside it. The cowling is laminated on its jig, trimmed to size and attached with Evo-Stik.

The stub wing is built onto the axle, after this has been soldered to the undercarriage struts.

Decor: One aircraft was flown in the USA after the war. It appears to have been a glossy dark green overall, with no markings except red, white and blue strips on the rudder, blue foremost.

Lozenges do not take as long to paint as one might think, if a celluloid stencil is cut for the first colour, the lozenges marked out with a soft crayon and painted in, then another stencil is made for the next colour and so on. The fourth colour can he added by eye and the fifth fills up the remaining spaces. Using one coat of matt Humbrol enamel it took me three evenings to do the lot.

Unit markings are well shown in Imperial War Museum photograph Q 66496, but there was even a DVIII with Japanese red runs, with a narrow white outline in place of crosses. The rudder of this machine was plain white and it was marked DVIII below the cockpit.

Trimming and flying I used a DC Dart, with a DC 8 x 4 nylon prop. A little lead was added over the motor, to bring the CG into the position shown, which brought the all-up weight to 8-1/2 oz.

Hand glides do not give a very good indication of trim, so give slight right rudder and launch over long grass on low power. The model should fly fairly straight. On full power it will then give a rapid climb in a left spiral and a glide to the right.

It seems to be a very stable model and will fly when quite badly out of trim, it is also practically crashproof. I bounced it off the tarmac at the Nationals, with out doing any harm at all.

ROGs are most impressive with no tendency to ground loop."

Supplementary file notes

Planfile includes article.

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