Jack Garnter's Fokker Models


This is Esci's 1/72nd scale Fokker DVII, an easy to build kit as long as you don't mind absolutely no interior! It was my very first WWI airplane after taking up the modeling hobby once again (about 12 years ago now). The color scheme (flown by Lt. O. von Beaulieu-Marconnay in Jasta 19) happened to catch my eye in the Aircraft in Profile series and I built the kit straight OOB. B-M's personal marking was hand painted using homemade stencils. I used Superscale lozenge for the wings, and, total novice that I was at the time, also used their way too blue and WAY too oversized rib tapes for both upper and lower wings! Live and learn, but then again, Dicta Ira prevailed here as well! Also my first attempt at painting laminated props...


This is a build up of the original DML release of the 1/48th scale Fokker D-8. Eventually I'd like to build another, along with a 1/48th scale D-7, because you get the beauty of WWI planes without the hassle of rigging them!. This was a straight out of the box project. I don't know if anyone else had this problem, but the fit of the fuselage halves was terrible. They had a MAJOR step (about 1mm!) along the bottom surface when the upper was aligned, and the upper surface where the elevator fit to the fuselage had to be filed thoroughly to allow the elevator to sit level. Also, the fit of the lower wing portion to the upper (why they didn't mold the wing as one solid piece I'll never know), was bad as well with a huge gap along the rear (looks like flap seams!). Those of you familiar with the kit know the lozenge decals were truly awful, so I replaced those with Aeromaster upper and lower sets. I made my own arrow decals and the cowling, wheel cover and elevator markings were hand painted. The markings are for a Jasta 6 bird.



I've always loved the Fokker Triplane, but never wanted to build any of the typical marking schemes. I bought Alex Imries book "The Fokker Triplane" and my choice was made. This is " Die Optische Tauschung " (The Optical Illusion) flown by Lt. Hans Kirchstein in Jasta 6. This build represented a real challenge, both because of the markings scheme and because it was another early DML 1/48th scale release, and as with their Fokker D-8, the fuselage halves were horribly mismatched, with over a 1mm step along the lower halves and a decided slant to the mating surface for the elevator. After puttying and filling repeatedly, I finally gave up and put a sheet of styrene along the lower surface of the fuselage. Except for that necessary repair, this build is straight out of the box. I can tell you that the optical illusion works both in reality (Kirchstein reported that the only bullets to ever hit were along the very outer edge of the port upper wing) and on the model. When you look at it, you'll think that a lot of the parts are out of alignment, but after repeatedly working with rulers and calipers, I can assure you they are not!



Return to Jack Gartner's Main Page