+64 06 3555515
Description
Once upon a time, there was a model company founded by none other than Peter Jackson of ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies fame. This company, called Wingnut Wings, even had its own air museum with full scale examples of aircraft they’d go on to produce in 1/32 scale. What came out of the factory came kits with such excellent engineering that they raised the bar for other hobby companies around the world, and in the process, brought more modelers into the domain of World War I modeling. These hobbit-forming kits were supported by instructions that also raised the bar in the industry, making the job of building and painting these models far less intimidating. Wingnut Wings came to the IPMS/USA 2019 National Convention to display their first kit outside the sphere of World War 1 aviation, the Avro Lancaster in both the B.I/B.III and Dambuster configurations, and also in 1/32 scale. Then came the Wuhan virus in early 2020 which added to a complex business situation at the company and suddenly, Wingnut Wings was gone. One kit that was nearing the finish line for release at that time was the Fokker Dr.I which promised to be a popular subject. Somehow the molds and materials were sent off to Meng and the Fokker is here!
The Fokker Dr.I was a triplane that is one of the best dogfighters produced during the war, and the all-red triplane was the iconic mount for German ace Manfred von Richtofen, the dreaded ‘Red Baron’. With the wing area of the Fokker Dr.I, the aircraft could climb and maneuver better than most of the allied aircraft at the time, though that same wing area created drag, and that made the Dr.I slower in level flight or a dive than its adversaries. The Dr.I was a rapid design in response to sightings of the Sopwith Triplane appearing in-theater. As such, there were bound to be some problems and indeed, the wings would buckle under load leading to a number of crashes that killed a number of notable German aces like Werner Voss. As a result, production of the Dr.I was halted after little more than 300 examples were built and surviving aircraft were relegated to rear area duties.
I am one of those modelers that didn’t have much interest in World War I aviation as the concept of rigging was intimidating at best, but when Wingnut Wings came along, I began collecting some of their kits for the day when I was ready to face my rigging fears. I knew of one subject that had minimal rigging which had always interested me, the Fokker Dr.I. When Meng released the kit, I still waited until I saw one built online as I was still not certain how much of this kit was Wingnut Wings versus Meng. Aside from one glaring problem with the kit, I decided to get one for my collection.
Molded in light gray styrene, this kit is presented on five parts trees plus one small tree of clear parts and one fret of photo-etched parts. There aren’t many parts in this kit given that this isn’t a complex subject, but you’ll note that there are a number of options in the box. These include:
Among the features and options in this kit:
- Nicely detailed cockpit
- Choice of control yokes
- Photo-etched pilot restraints
- Detailed Oberursel Ur.II rotary engine
- Choice of crankcase covers for the engine
- Choice of tail skids
- Choice of horizontal stabilizers
- Choice of rudders
- Choice of styrene or styrene with photo-etched shield Spandau guns
- Choice of propellers
There are four subjects featured in this kit and they represent the aircraft in different phases of development, hence the parts options. The instructions clearly call out which parts are used for which version with at least one exception, the ‘fuselage cover assembly’. Three of the subjects are the Fokker Dr.I while one is a Fokker F.I that was sent to the front for evaluation. These subjects include:
- Fokker Dr.I, 425/17, JG.1, March 1918, as flown by Manfred von Richtofen
- Fokker F.1, 103/17, Jasta 10, September 1917, as flown by Werner Voss
- Fokker Dr.I, 206/17, Jasta 27, May 1918, as flown by Hermann Goering
- Fokker Dr.I, 202/17, Jasta 19, February 1918, as flown by Walter Groettsch
