Eduard

1/48 Fokker E.V 'Weekend Edition'

Kit Number: 8480

Reviewed by  Scott Hollingshead, IPMS# 34786

MSRP: $19.95 Website: www.eduard.cz Kit Link: catalog item Designed by Reinhold Platz, the Fokker Flugzeugwerke produced the monoplane Fokker E.V that was flight tested in May of 1918, and reached operating units in July of that year. Powered by an Oberursel UR.II engine with an output of 110 horsepower, the plane could travel at up to 127 mph, and reach an altitude of 20,670 feet. The armament, like many other German fighters of the time, consisted of a pair of Spandau MG08 7.92mm machine guns. The E.V saw its first victory in August of 1918, but the victor, Leutnant Emil Rolff was killed two days later when his wing collapsed during flight. Another fatality soon thereafter caused the planes to be grounded altogether. There is debate as to whether the faulty wing was caused by shoddy construction on the part of Fokker, or a design change requested by Army Technical Bureau. Whatever the case may be, the wing reverted to the original design, and the plane was placed back in service in October with the new designation of D.VIII. The only known surviving fuselage is located at the Caproni Museum in Italy. Upon opening this kit, you will find sixty-seven parts contained on three sprues (one of which contains only two upper wings) of Eduard's tan plastic. Eduard does a very nice job with their level of detail once again with this gem, but understand going in that there are some very small parts to deal with. As with other "Weekend Edition" kits, there is a decal sheet with markings for one plane, that of Theo Osterkamp, Marine Feld Jagdstaffel II in Belgium during 1918. There are six pages of all black and white directions; the last page gives the paint recommendations for the colorful "bumblebee" pattern of this particular aircraft. The only color drawings are on the box top art, and drawings of the left and right sides of the plane along with Gunze color recommendations on a box side panel (these colors are also found on the last page of the directions). Overall, construction was straightforward with a minimal number of issues arising for me. I was a bit apprehensive when it came time to install the upper wing on this monoplane, and with good reason. I would highly recommend taking your time to ensure that the wing is good and level, and having only two hands available, this challenged me a bit. There are six pieces holding up the wing, and all must work together to give the desired result in the end. I would also recommend a good pair of tweezers and plenty of patience when installing the parts C14 (there are ten of these in all) for the control surfaces. The only other real issue that I had was in dealing with the seam lines on the top and bottom of the fuselage. I used Testors Model Master enamel Insignia Yellow for my base color, then made and applied 8mm wide masking tape strips followed by Testors Model Master Acryl Aircraft Interior Black for the fuselage. I used Testors Model Master Acryl Semi-Gloss White for the tail, and RLM-80 Green for the wing. The decals went on with no issues over a layer of Future (thinned with distilled water 50-50). My final finish was accomplished by using Testors Model Master Metallizer Sealer that I airbrushed straight out of the bottle. I went ahead and added the control and bracing wires (since there are not that many) using stainless steel suture wire (I picked up packages of 18-inch wires at the IPMS Nationals in Virginia Beach several years ago).

As far as the hits of this kit are concerned, I think that the level of detail is once again outstanding, and the finished engine looks good even though some photo-etched push rods and ignition wires would improve it. As with a previous review, I was unable to tackle the construction of this kit in a weekend, but it did not take all that long. Although the markings are for a single aircraft in the Weekend Edition series, the decal sheet does include all of the gauges on the plane. My only real miss on this kit would be the fuselage fit, as the gaps did take some work to fill and sand down, but this could have been something that was only present in my sample. I would also make the point that this was not so large a fault that I would dissuade a person from buying the kit based on this one issue that I experienced. Again, although I would not consider them to be "misses", I would caution others building this kit when it comes to dealing with the small parts, wing alignment, and utilizing this particular paint scheme. There is also some debate as to this paint scheme and its accuracy, but there is always plenty of debate by the "experts" on the Internet, and I would not fault Eduard if the paint scheme turned out to be incorrect. Overall, I would highly recommend this kit to fans of WWI aircraft looking to add what was later to become the Fokker D.VIII to their collection. The kit builds as well as any other Eduard kit that I have in my collection, and with a little patience can be made into a real attention getter. I would like to thank the folks at Eduard for providing this review kit to the IPMS, to the review corps for allowing me to perform this evaluation, and to you for taking the time to read it.