Building a Fokker D.VII

After the success on building the Flair Magnatilla, the Morane Saulnier N I thought that I should build another plane! I really like the WWI monoplanes! I looked and looked and I couldn’t find anything that appealed to me.

I like the planes that have character and I have been always attracted to the biplanes and I decided to go for the Fokker D.VII.

History of the Fokker D.VII

The Fokker D.VII was a German World War I fighter aircraft designed by Reinhold Platz of the Fokker-Fleugzeugwerke. Germany produced around 3,300 D.VII aircraft in the summer and autumn of 1918. In service, the D.VII quickly proved itself to be a formidable aircraft. The Armistice ending the war specifically required Germany to surrender all D.VIIs to the Allies at the conclusion of hostilities. Surviving aircraft saw continued widespread service with many other countries in the years after World War I.

Fokker’s chief designer, Reinhold Platz, had been working on a series of experimental planes, the V-series since 1916. These planes were characterized by the use of cantilever wings, first developed during Fokker's government-mandated collaboration with Hugo Junkers. The resulting wings were thick, with a rounded leading edge. This gave greater lift and more docile stalling behavior than conventional (thin) wings of the time.

Late in 1917, Fokker built the experimental VII biplane fitted with the standard Mercedes D.IIIa engine. In January 1918, Idflieg held a fighter competition at Adlershof. For the first time, frontline pilots would directly participate in the evaluation and selection of new fighters. Fokker submitted the VII along with several other prototypes.

Manfred von Richthofen “the Red Baron” flew the VII and found it tricky, unpleasant, and directionally unstable in a dive. In response to these complaints, Reinhold Platz lengthened the rear fuselage by one structural bay, and added a triangular fixed vertical fin in front like "comma" shape, all-moving rudder. Upon flying the modified VII, Richthofen praised it as the best aircraft of the competition. It offered excellent performance from the outdated Mercedes engine, yet it was safe and easy to fly. Richthofen's recommendation virtually decided the competition, but he was not alone in recommending it. Fokker immediately received a provisional order for 400 production aircraft, which were designated D.VII.

My thoughts.

I really liked the shape of the plane, two wings and the short body attracted me.  The nose kind of rectangular I find also cool.  Now that this is my third plane I choose to go more freehanded on the designed. Inspired in the Flair Magnatilla body and wings I designed this plane with the most noticeable characteristics of the real one!

I studied the pictures of the plane in all three dimensions and I used Sketchup to make the plans.  I trace the shape around the Flair Magnatilla and created a scale that would fit in the 20”x 30” Adams Foam Board and always most important that will fit in my car! This time the plans and measurements are at scale in centimetres.

I am going to show you how to build it and how it flies in three videos. In the first video you will see the steps and instruction to build it, in the second movie you will see the Fokker D.VII flying for the first time and the third video the plain finished flying!.

Since she has a flat fuselage sides there is not much to worry about, it is quite easy to build, It is an easy build, however more work than the Flair Magnatilla since it has two wings that need more attention.

I really like the shape of the wings and body of this plane, it is quite different and attractive.  I went for the classic color scheme red! With the Malta Crosses with white background loos great.  The location of the wings is the most tricky part. Both they have to be parallel and to cut out the piece of the fuselage you need 4 hands. The rudder is quite small as in all of these planes but with the experience of the Flair Magnatilla and the Morane Saulnier N, I am not afraid that it was going to be challenging to fly.

I had a motor from the Dynam Sbach on my Blender that I don’t fly that much so I decided to use that to have extra punch with the 4S batteries. I am also using the ESC from the Sbach.   With my experience that I have gathered building I felt confident that the plane will fly just fine.  

 As I said before, I have not been a plane builder until now and the challenge of the design with Sketchup and the great looks of this plane, I was eager into the build it!

I based again in the great design of the wings on the Flitetest FT Spitfire build video. The building video of the FT Spitfire I think is awesome if you want to build planes and get the fundamental ideas for building out of Adams foam board. I didn’t want to build the motor pod to make it swappable because... I just didn’t want to.  Terry O’Brien, who has been mentoring me in building planes, suggested me to build the pod for his Flair Magnatilla and we end up not doing it because of the difficulties on securing the pod in the fuselage.

The Fokker D.VII has fewer challenges, one being the wings and the wing struts.  Nothing was difficult enough to stop me of building it.  The biggest challenge I had with the Flair Magnatilla build was the landing gear and with Terry’s help the bending of the wires was a piece of cake. Having the proper tools to makes it easy.

After flying the plane few times I am not totaly happy with the plane being so light. It flies well but to my personal likings a little too light!  I might try to add lead weight to make it heavier and get better penetration.

Build instructions

Check this building video as a guide for the desciption below.

Before you start building this plane you might want to consider covering your foam board with Vinyl:

The main advantage of covering the foam board with Vinyl is that you get a smooth paintable surface right away. One consideration that I had is that with the Vinyl the strength specialy in the wings is less than if you cover them with brown packing paper and Polycrilic. Also is important to consider weight. This plane came to be a really light plane and with a little bit of wind becomes less enjoyable to fly! Now, that is just my opinion.

Here is the video for covering the foam board with Vinyl

It is a good practice if you are going to use the Vinyl covering, to have all the foam boadrs covered before you start cutting. Something I founded important is to allow vinil to cover the trailing edge and the bottom of the wing.  A roll of Vinyl cost only $1.00 at the Dollar Store.

Main Wing

The wing is similar to that of the FT Spitfire just a different shape.

Make the spars first and cut out the two main wing pieces. Bevel the leading edge, Terry build a tool to cut the bevels which made it even easier to make. 

Then bend the airfoil as normal (and you could glue skewers into the airfoil bends if you want extra strength, I didn’t, instead I this time a vinyl covering for smoothness, paintable surface and somewhat resistance on one side of the foam board).

Score the bottom of the wing on the lines to allow it to bend, and then carefully test-bend it up to get it into shape.

The wing will be assembled and bent at the same time, in three steps. Test bend the wing around this spar to make sure everything fits, that you get a nice airfoil, and the ovoid cut in the top is large enough to allow the wing to bend fully. This is a lot of folding, so make sure you check it carefully and know what you are doing before putting the hot glue on it. Now install the aileron servos at the end of the spar. Once you are happy with the fit, glue the leading edge and the remaining surfaces of the spar (top and rest of bottom), and quickly bend the whole wing into place around the spar. Hold it in place securely for a while until the glue sets, making sure the spar emerges from the wing at the correct position in the airfoil. Once this is set, glue the entire trailing edge, and hold it until set. Note that since the ailerons are big you need to trim to fit them.

Repeat all this with the other wing. When complete, trim the parts of the spar that are extending from the wing and test fit the joiner-spar. Trim the wings at the joint if they don’t join up fairly cleanly, it’s OK. If all looks good, don’t forget to make small hole in the bottom of the wing to pull the servo leads out of the hole and tape them out of the way, then glue both wings together with generous hot glue. Using a business card take the excess of glue before it gets hard.

Now do the bottom wing in the same way following the mewsurements in the plans.

 
 Fuselage and tail

Assemble the body following the dimensions on the plans.  Leave the bottom of the fuselage open until you put the rudder and elevator servos and pushrods. 

I coated the fuselage prior to painting with Minwax Polyurethane. 

Cut out the tail pieces, cutting bevels for the elevator and rudder.

Glue the stabilizers to the fuselage, making sure it is square, and glue.

Glue a popsicle stick to the bottom or the top of the elevator to connect the two elevators strongly. Elevator and rudder servos are installed as far forward in the fuselage as possible.  

Mark the shape of the lower wing and cut the fuselage to fit the wing. Once you are happy with the fit making sura that the bottom of the wing is paralel to the top flat part of the fuselage proceed to glue.

 You can tell how shiny the wings look with the Vinyl coating.

Mounting the Top Wing

First cut the wing struts following the picture

The other struts are 19 cm long by 1 cm wide. We used BBQ squers to reinforce ALL the struts. Back and front.

Glue the bottom struts first and then the top wing.

The firewall goes on top of the end of the fuselage. I glue a square piece of foam and then plywood on top.  Make sure you drill the holes in the playwood for the motor mount prior to glueing!!

Leave the uper part of the body open to slide the battery pack as far forward as you can after installing the motor and propeller. Once the motor is install cut foam pieces accordingly to cover the motor and do the cowling with poster board like shown on the picture below.

Cowling.

The front part of the cowling is made from double poster board.  

To determine the length of the cowling present the motor on the fuselage and cut the support foam accordingly. Fit everything together for testing.

The round part of the cowling was made out of poster board, this time is much easier than the body since it is square.

Landing gear

I bent 2 pieces of 3/32” piano wire, and sit them on top of the popsicle platform that I glued to the bottom of the fuselage. Make sure you are happy with the length of the landing gear considering the size of your propeller. I think I cut the wires a bit too long! You be the judge.

I glued pieces of popsicle sticks to keep the landing gear in place. Hot Glue? my best friend...

I used hot glue to attached the piano wires for the landing gear, much easier and durable. I also used popsicle sticks and hot glue to fasten the landing gear to the fuselage.

Then fit the scale sized Dubro 3” wheel.

 Paint

After varnishing the uncovered (uncovered with Vinyl) parts with Polyurethane I paint it with a can of spay paint from Home Depot. Red! Very red!!

Decals from Google

Flying

CG is on the spar on the Top Wing.

I am amazed how well this plane flies. On Maiden, no troubles whatsoever, requires NO rudder input for nice turns.  I would say that flies very scale with tons of extra power.  Take offs are super short and landing too.  Very little trimming required on first flight!  No bad tendencies at all.  This plane is lots of fun to build and more so to fly, very nice. Aerobatic does rolls, loops hammer heads, it does it all, just perfect! No adjustments needed. This plane has already caught many eyes at the park. It’s a very pretty plane that you don’t see much.

I was anxious to fly her!

Here is the plane all painted and with decals.

What else can I say about it... I love it! She is just beautiful.

 The power set I used Is as follows:

• Detrum BM3720A-KV650 Brushless Outrunner. (Dynam Sbach motor)
• 3000 mAh 4S
• 50 amp ESC from the Sbach (I didn’t have any other ESC kicking around!)
• 13 X 6 propeller.
• The battery hatch is underneath the motor
• CG right on the wing spar.
• As for the pilot, is the same pilot from the Flair Magnatilla. I don’t know where it came from but is perfect for the plane.

Plans

Top Wing

Lower Wing

Fuselage

Tail Section

Have fun building this plane and send me pictures of your build. Should you have any questions, just let me know.

Thanks for reading.