Hi everyone!
This will be my first build log on RCCanada, so please bear with me. First off, I'm really slow at building. I'm in university right now, so time is tight, but hey everyone needs a break here and there! So on with the actual build.
Behold, the discontinued Great Planes Fokker DR1. This thing was in bad shape when I got it. Looked like someone stepped on the middle wing, splattered white paint all over it and stored it in a dusty humid environment.
That said, the covering was FINISHED. Holes, stains, paint, you name it was on there. So the second I got the aircraft I stripped it of its original covering and fixed the broken wing. Turns out the wing wasn't that bad. It had only cracked at the joint of two leading edge pieces of balsa. So easy fix with some glue and clamps.
Next thing I tackled was beefing up those wings. I've heard lots of stories of the bottom wing just cracking in half on landing, so the bottom wing received a nice 1/2" by 1/2" basswood reinforcement stringer at the wing joint. The middle received some angled balsa just because I thought it was a good idea. Beef the wings? Check.
So I checked out the tail of the aircraft. One hard landing and I'm telling you that tail skid will become part of the elevator. So onto the reinforcement. Only 3/16 sheet this time. Speaking of landing gear, the stock LG is terrible! Again, a hard landing will crack the underside of the plane. Luckily, a good friend of mine is a welder by trade and can fix me some good shock absorbing landing gear (with bungee cord
)
Onto the propulsion department. Right now, I've been trying to sell my nitro engines (they don't seem to be selling
) so if I don't sell one of my saito FA .91, I guess I'm using that. Though I really would like to go electric as most of my fleet is electric now.
So to do list.
- Create a pull-pull mechanism for elevator, rudder
- Create a realistic cockpit from scratch
- Find some sort of scale wheels that don't cost an arm and a leg
- Create as many scale details as possible
Once I get that done, I'll be covering my dreidecker in beige coverite fabric and painting it with some BEAUTIFUL nelson hobbies paint. I did a couple test panels with this stuff and it's absolutely gorgeous.
Really happy with my purchase and John even made custom colors for my paint scheme. Oh btw, my paint scheme is a secret! You'll have to wait an see!
So far, that's it.
I appreciate any comments, criticism, questions, you name it. Also if anyone has any ideas to make this plane more scale, please chime in!