WWI - British Airco Dh.2 & German Fokker Dr.1 - Finish for flight.

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WWI - British Airco Dh.2 & German Fokker Dr.1 - Finish for flight.

Post by Neons »

First I want to offer my condolences to the family members on the passing of the last of 4 WWII veterans. Bernard "Bud Bier will be missed. He was the last of our membership Greatest Generation group of Veterans. He was assigned to the "Ghost Army". creating mock-ups to fool the enemy during and after the June 6th D-Day landings. . I inherited 4 planes from the graciousness of his Bristol County RC member son Dr. Jon Bier. I am in the process of finishing them to a full flight condition here. The planes I have are almost done or need repairs. This month a nice article on Bud Bier was printed in the AMA RC magazine. He certainly was a very well educated man that served our country.

About the aircraft.
The Airco DH.2 was a single-seat pusher biplane fighter aircraft which operated during the First World War. It was the second pusher design by aeronautical engineer Geoffrey de Havilland for Airco, based on his earlier DH.1 two-seater.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airco_DH.2
9-2021 - In Memory- Bud Bier.jpg
The model may have been a kit but I do not have the information on the maker if it is a kit. The model was put together evidently for can motor flight with nicad batteries. That was not a good advantage due to the weight and very nominal power. I am not sure it would have flown very well.. That alone shows it was a reasonably older model. The only thing I find that points to maybe it was a kit is the molded vac-formed cockpit area. The foam wings have some indentations that do not show reason why they are there also.

The first part I want to show is the lower wing bottom with landing gear modifications and an ingenious wing stay tensioner. There are other things done in the photo at a different time also. In the photos you will see four small hooks. There is small black elastics on them. The wing stays are pulled snug with the these elastics. The line stays are fed through the wings zig zagged up and down. Works very well.
DeHaviland Airco DH-2-  Stay tension- fold land gear.jpg
The other thing of interest is the fold back landing gear set. There are 2 wing dowels in the fuselage not seen in the picture. 2 elastics hold the landing gear and the wing in place after the landing gear is folded in place into the two holes in the trailing edge. The front of the landing gear is bent into loops that fit the forward dowel. That acts like a hinge and anchor. By having this setup it allow the ability to remove the upper and lower wings together after a few screws in the fuselage hull are removed. Other items in the photo are the servos with pull pull lines and the dummy motor talked about next.
DeHaviland Airco DH-2-  Stay tension- fold land gear (1).jpg
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WWI British DeHaviland Airco Dh.2 Finish for flight.

Post by Neons »

DeHaviland Airco DH-2-  WWI Biplane (1).jpg
Okay, here are a couple pictures of the Airco D.2 fuselage, In the nose i made a Lewis gun out of scrap wood, plastic tubing, a small piece of carbon fibre, and pins for gunsights. The pilot is made from a vacu-form pilot the uses 2 parts. Coat the halves with mold release, wax, veggy oil or something to help the halves come apart. I taped the halves and then clamp them together. I mixed 5 minute epoxy and pour enough into the mold to coat the inside area known as slosh molding. Just keep it rotating until it thickens and hardens up. Put aside to cure overnight and then start pulling it apart slowly. You could just cut and glue the 2 parts together and not do a molded pilot also. You can find so many items here that are vacuum formed.
http://parkflyerplastics.com/cart/index ... page=index
The nose has lead shot gun BB's for trim molded in. There is space ahead of the pilot for a 1000 Ma lipoly battery. Bud's wheels were a little flexible so I covered a new pair of spoked wheels with 1/32 plywood and a brass tube axle.
DeHaviland Airco DH-2-  Fuselage view (1).jpg
Next about the fuselage is it is assembled with small screws. Very nice, Taking the screws out lets you remove the nose component. Unscrewing the struts and releasing the bottom wing elastics allows wing removal off the fuselage. In the rear remove the screw and the motor and Esc can be jockeyed out. Neatly engineered. Do take note that the wing stays are threaded through the wing strut bases and terminate under the lower wing going to the hooks for elastic tension. Neat.
DeHaviland Airco DH-2-  Fuselage view (3).jpg
I installed an old brushless motor and Esc. I found a small 9 cylinder vacu-form radial dummy motor and installed it for the pusher motor look. This motor may have looked similar to the real one. I found in my spares box.. This is a semi scale model and it is fine.

Looking just behind the pilot there are 2 servos. They are set up with push pull lines for the control surfaces, I added a small spring to help keep the lines snug. The receiver space is there also.
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Re: WWI British DeHaviland Airco Dh.2 Finish for flight.

Post by Neons »

And now here is a series of photos ready to fly.
Attachments
DeHaviland Airco DH-2-  WWI Biplane (2).jpg
DeHaviland Airco DH-2-  WWI Biplane (3).jpg
DeHaviland Airco DH-2-  WWI Biplane (4).jpg
DeHaviland Airco DH-2-  WWI Biplane (5).jpg
DeHaviland Airco DH-2-  WWI Biplane (6).jpg
DeHaviland Airco DH-2-  WWI Biplane (7).jpg
DeHaviland Airco DH-2-  WWI Biplane (8).jpg
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WWI - German Fokker Dr.1 - Finish for flight.

Post by Neons »

Here I have another of Bud Bier's model aircraft. I looked it up and found it to be a Great Planes Electrifly Fokker Dr1 triplane. It is a well built model and had some evident flight damages to the wing anchor points for the struts. The fuselage had some port side nose damage also. The nice thing about the repairs was I had some Lite Monokote covering which closely matched the red covering. Most damage was the bottom of the upper wing.
8-28-2021 Triplane rebuild- Bud Bier.jpg
The first I did here was to insal tthe 2 servos into the servo covers and arrange the Y extension to reach the fuselage receiver. Then some wood repairs. Next was to cover the damage with new material. The wing looked good as new again. There was 5 broken strut anchor points. These were all Dremeled out using straight dental burrs. Then I jig sawed replacements with aircraft plywood and glued them all in place. I made a few ribs in the damages fuselage and sheeted the area . After smooth sanding I covered with red material.

Next was a total motor , Esc, and control servos. After some tests of the electronics and motor I assembled the plane back together. After assembly I made a pair of Spandau machine guns and place them in the mount with a dowel pin and Velcro. The pilot was made as above with the slosh method and resin. The cowling was fitted with the dummy motor and painted propeller. All is working and ready to fly.
Attachments
9-10-2021 Fokker Dr-1 Bud Plane (1).jpg
9-10-2021 Fokker Dr-1 Bud Plane.jpg
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Re: WWI - British Airco Dh.2 & German Fokker Dr.1 - Finish for flight.

Post by Neons »

I brought the Fokker outdoors to do a photo shoot and have some fun creating the pictures for posting.
Attachments
9-14-2021 Fokker Dr-1 Bud Plane (0).jpg
9-14-2021 Fokker Dr-1 Bud Plane (1).jpg
9-14-2021 Fokker Dr-1 Bud Plane (2b).jpg
9-14-2021 Fokker Dr-1 Bud Plane (4).jpg
9-14-2021 Fokker Dr-1 Bud Plane (6).jpg
9-14-2021 Fokker Dr-1 Bud Plane (11).jpg
9-14-2021 Fokker Dr-1 Bud Plane (18).jpg
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Re: WWI - British Airco Dh.2 & German Fokker Dr.1 - Finish for flight.

Post by Neons »

These photos here were fun to make. I will not tell you how I did it. But I will leave you with a partial clue at the end. I can assure you I have not flown the plane yet. Only one picture was Photoshop at the end. Came out nice.
Attachments
9-14-2021 Fokker Dr-1 Bud Plane (25).jpg
9-14-2021 Fokker Dr-1 Bud Plane (26).jpg
9-14-2021 Fokker Dr-1 Bud Plane (28).jpg
9-14-2021 Fokker Dr-1 Bud Plane (29).jpg
Photoshopped
Photoshopped
9-14-2021 Fokker Dr-1 Bud Plane (29c).jpg
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