Dead eyes

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Another pic.

Dead eyes

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Side view.

abufletcher

That looks 100% (maybe even 200% ) better! You do realize, however, that the EIII's engine only had ONE rocker rod? But, never mind, your dummy engine does a very nice job of filling the cowl now just get Snoopy in there and fly!

If you find yourself motivated to try an even better version (now that you've figured out the materials) you could recut the ply backing (making sure all of the 8 dummy cylinders are equal and straight). Then cover with equal lengths of the tubing. The can bottom was a good idea but you could clean it up a bit and make it more scale by running a single rocker rod from the can bottom to the top of the dummy cylinders. BTW, no need for the curved tubing on the sides of the cylinder since the Gnome engines didn't have them.

And then you can have another go at that machine gun! That's the problem with "going scale," once you improve one area of the model, you feel you need to go back and redo some other part. And so it goes until eventually you've redone everything 10 times!

Seriously, the best thing is just to get the Eindecker finished and have some fun with it up in the air!

Dead eyes

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Doh ! Thanks for the comment abufletcher, but where did you get your pilot ? I suppose I could let snoopy fly it as a "Captured plane", lol

abufletcher

Because I completely altered the wing mounting, I was able to create a full-depth cockpit and so could use a full-body pilot. With the BUSA method all you can use is a pilot bust. My pilot is a modified 1/6 scale Luftwaffe pilot doll from Dragon Toys (Elite Forces).

Maybe Snoopy would be OK, if you renamed him Schnoopy!

Alistair

My flair hannibal was lovely to fly but didnt look like an eindecker or anything in particular other than a world war 1 style monoplane and that always irritated me. The Balsa USA eindecker is not very scale however at least it looks like an eindecker and I am very pleased how it flies.

abufletcher

The Hannibal looks like field mechanics cannibalized several early-war aircraft to make one machine. It doesn't actually look bad, just looks like something from "Those daring young men in their flying machines."

But you're right that even a completely stock BUSA Eindecker looks like an eindecker. Or at least more like an eindecker than any other WWI airplane. I think I'm overly hard on the BUSA eindecker because I was expecting more. I was brand-new to RC modeling and didn't understand the difference between "scale" and "sport scale." I want to say, though, that I think your model came out very well and I love the green color scheme.

BTW, any fair weather in the UK for your maiden? I just bit the bullet and did a first flight on my Flair Puppeteer today.

Alistair

My maiden flight was very windy but it coped with that no problem. How did the pup go ?

abufletcher

Hair-raising! Scroll down to the bottom for a description:

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_25...25/key_/tm.htm

Alistair

Well it went home in one piece so thats got to be a plus. Love the colour scheme The green eindecker I got from a pic on the web of a full size in a museum in Berlin and I thought it would be different from the standard linen. (I like to be different) It was that or go for British markings as they captured one and painted it probably PC10 with roundels etc Doing the Balsa USA 1/4 DR1 triplane now and spoilt for choice on colour schemes but definitely wont be the red baron

abufletcher

I know what you mean. I'm always looking for an unusual color scheme. On my Flair Legionnaire, I went with Imperial Russian markings. I'm glad I settled on the scheme I did for the EIII. I really hated not being able to paint a cross on the rudder, but I think the all black rudder set it apart from the crowd somehow.

I think one of the other things that bugs me about non-scale eindeckers is that you see them popping up at contest and scale fly-in where a similarly non-scale Camel or DrI would get laughed off the field. It's like model eindeckers have become an entity all to themselves. And you can spot them a mile off: Long nose/cowl, oversized "Ugly Stik" type rudder, that RED stripe, circular engine turning on the cowls, and a gun perched way off the deck. It's like collectively modelers have forgotten what the actual EIII looked like. As I said, modelers would be less kind with these sorts of alterations on a DrI. Can you imagine a DrI with a BUSA style fixed fin/rudder combination? Can you imagine a DrI with a cowl 2-3 times the scale depth?

I think not.


*****

Re the Puppeteer maiden (I can't bring myself to call it a Pup), I feel a certain pride for having managed to salvage a bad situation with nary a scratch. Six months ago I would have crashed it for sure. But this pride is zero'ed out by the fact that once I again I screwed up the balancing of a model. I was SOOO sure that I had that right.

Alistair

I think the crux is most just dont know how they looked and/or are happy with something that looks 'like' it. E.g. I am generally happy with my eindecker but I am peeved that I rushed into it and like you, as my first actual build, expected more scale. A 2nd time around I could make it much more scale without any risk to flying qualities. In fact I would go for the 1/3 scale from say SR Batteries or proctor but with more research on how scale they were.


Many aspects you can understand for practical reasons e.g. not having wing warping. But other aspects e.g. the fin on the BUSA eindecker - why on earth didnt they just make it a full rudder? The wire tail skid - the functioning bungeed real type I have on my 1/3 scale BUSA sopwith pup and its not rocket science to make, and how people put tail wheels on seems to totally defeat the object . The slab sides, it wouldnt have been hard to make box section etc etc blah blah

For years I was very happy with the hannibal then as I became more interested in WWI began to notice the details (or lack of) that meant it looked like nothing in particular . I think as you find your niche in model flying (mines WW1 and begining to look at pre-war with interest) you become more discerning. If you look at some of the ARTF WWI offerings well, jeez![>:]

Dont get me wrong, I'm not into 'museum' standard just that it has too look good in the air with the practicalities of transport and flying in mind. But e.g. the fin on the eindecker is absurd when a full rudder is nothing to make.

abufletcher

This is part of the eindecker's modeling lore. Many modelers seem to think that the SR Batteries kit is "more scale" than the BUSA offering. It's not. It's just bigger and better quality (and so people tend to do more detailing). But the design is almost identical. It has the same overly deep cowl, the fat airfoil with ailerons, and even the finned rudder and stab/elevator design. By all accounts the kit is a joy to build but scale it's not.

The Proctor kit, of course, is a whole different story. Actually, I really like the EIII from Aerodrome RC and if I had know about this kit "way back when" I would have order it instead of the BUSA kit. It's very scale in its outlines and used full span ailerons to maintain the illusion of wing warping

http://www.aerodromerc.com/WWI/Fokke...II_EZ5_lrg.jpg

Exactly. I can appreciate making (minor) functional changes. But often I think the kit manufacturers aren't even trying.

Alistair

I've got the 1/3 scale kit of the DR1 from Glen Torrance models (glad I bought it in August when the exchange rate was better than it is now) and I think that is 'scale' certainly he seems to have put a lot more thought into his kits.. Certainly the quality in the box looks good. Thats my project after the BUSA 1/4 triplane and I'm really looking forward to the build.

abufletcher

GT models are about as scale as they come. I wish I could afford to build at that scale (1/6 scale fits my budget). You've got quite an impressive lineup of kits there!

Alistair

I had to sell off a lot of models to finance these e.g. my hannibal etc so I could to finance the kits I wanted to build myself. These combined with my 1/3 pup (built by a friend) will be my fleet. umm got a flair taube as well and an albatross C1 2 seater that I bought off ebay, both fly lovely. But they may have to go for space.

Looking forward to hearing Dead Eyes when he has had his maiden flight, all scale quibbles aside they do fly nice.

Dead eyes

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Thanks guys, I look forward to my maiden too. A friend of mine has completed his and we look forward to being a "Fokker scourage" at Fly-Ins next year. My place of employment is down to 4 days a week due to the slowing economy. Which gives me more time, but also less cash. But luckily for me I have little left to buy and just need a few odd & ends. I am so glad I started this thread. I have learned much about Eindeckers during this build and hopefully others can use this info to make theirs better in the future. I enjoy building and it never ceases to amaze me how you see so few "kit built planes at the field" these days. Most people just bring those "ARFS" which all look the same. I understand how somep eople have little spare time these days but theres nothing that relaxes me more than going to my shop and sanding some balsa.

Dead eyes

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I found a link to translate "Snoopy" in German - http://tts.imtranslator.net/26bF

abufletcher

With any luck, I might be starting on the prototype for the CD ScaleDesigns Albatros CI (1/6 scale) as early as January! Until then, I guess I'll only be flying (and hopefully NOT rebuilding).

Alistair

I used to be all ARTF unless I bought a 2nd hand 'kit made' model. But then I had a bad experience with a very nice RE8, almost trashed it because the tailplane angle was wrong, and no dihedral skidded all over the place. Fixed these, got it flying nice, then trashed it because it was so 'scale' the scale elevator connection (buried inside the fuse) came off in flight. Came to the conclusion if I want a nice WWI model thats different then I have to build it myself. Still got the plan for the RE8 which is a future project. All scale complaints aside I am very glad I chose the BUSA eindecker as my first foray into actually building a kit. It was, as described, easy build and very relaxing and so satisfying. Now I doubt I will ever look at ARTF again, I am that smitten with 'balsa bashing'..

Good luck with the albatross, 2 seaters seem to have much more prescence in the air

abufletcher

From a 1/6 BUSA Eindecker to a 1/4 BUSA DrI to a 1/3 GT DrI, man, you are moving up fast! Add to that your RE8 plans and you've got a real scale obsession going on. Welcome to my world! Notice my avatar imagine. It's a 36" scratch-built RE8 I built over 25 years ago. And I still have the 3-views I used!

Alistair

This was my one, action man was exact scale size which was handy. On the good side i've still got the remains so can reuse struts, engine details etc ribs as patterns etc. (Wheels I used on my eindecker)

It was a harsh lesson in not buying a model unless you know/trust the person concerned and/or have seen it flying. Lying git on ebay said it had flown and flew nice.[>:] Lying git! [:'(]Even more irritating was having totally re-rigged it to get dihedral, changed engine (had a laser V twin that ran for exactly 8 minutes because the tank was impossibly low down for it to suck fuel longer than that and impossible to raise the tank (plan called for an inverted single cylinder) and had finally got it flying beautifully then disaster because of impracticable scale detail. A very expensive lesson which is a major reason why now i build my own. Then i've got no one to blame except myself. But eventually I shall build the RE8 as my first venture into solely from plan

abufletcher

That does look like a great scale model. But, yes, where's the SCALE dihedral? That's an obvious problem! Anyway, I'm glad that you have made the decision to "roll your own" so to speak. While I love scale models, I could honestly never get much pleasure out of flying one built by someone else. I don't mind ARFs because...well...I take no pride in them anyway! They're just fodder for my flying skills!

Alistair

Its not all negative though as the guy who founded Honda said (pertinent being your in Japan) "the 1% we call success comes from 99% we call failure". I did all new functional rigging that incorporated dihedral (which was my first time rigging experience) and was rewarded with one lovely flight before the final one and gained a lot of other experience, i.e. its better to build it myself.

Lack of dihedral may have been obvious with hindsight, but then again I was assured it had flown and flew very nicely. This and many other aspects meant this was a total lie (more experience gained). I think buying scale models has a lot in common with buying used cars and used car dealers.

ARTF are great value but totally souless

Alistair

Bit of encouragement for deadeyes - Had my eindecker flying last sunday in ideal conditions, just a gentle breeze, and she chugged about beautifully scale like with the saito 90 twin on half throttle and looked and sounded really good with a lot of presence in the air, yet flew so easily it would make a good trainer. Deliberately ran out of fuel (with plenty of height) to see how long it would last (22 mins and I cant squeeze a bigger tank in) even deadstick landing was piece of cake. Next flight I'm gonna throw her around abit to see how she loops and rolls, I doubt she'll knife edge. The Balsa USA Eindecker 90 kit, all scale detail quibbles aside, is a real pleasure to fly.