Airdrome Aeroplanes 75% Fokker Dr1

[Litespeed]

looking forward to it. Will be great having the extreme ends of private flight in your hangar.

 

And keep the photos coming so we can all enjoy the build. I always wondered about Robert Baslee's high speed riveting- much prefer your steady and methodical method. It is a flying beast after all- not a flyscreen door.

 

Keep up the quality work mate- that Snoopy will take any advantage.

 

Is a gas powered machine gun on the cards?

 

BE great to pepper Snoopy with paintballs..........

 

 

[flyvulcan]

Robert's high speed approach to building does concern me a bit. At least I will have peace of mind that issues such as fatigue induced by poorly drilled, deburred and riveted holes won't be a problem.

 

We plan to keep weight to a minimum on the Fokker so lightweight replica guns it will be. When Flyerme with his Nieuport and I meet for our dogfights, we shall have to yell out "Ratatatat" as loud as we can to simulate the machine guns firing.

 

I'm looking forward one day to actually have one of the three projects in my stable flying. When all three are, I shall be a happy man... Looking for my next project!

 

 

 

 

Komet, Lightning Bug and Fokker.

 

The next one might have to be something with more seats...

 

 

[Litespeed]

I am sure Garry Morgan has some in the stable that might suit.

 

Or maybe Robert Baslee could make a suitable two seat trainer with a Rotec of course.

 

Be good if a lasertag system could be setup- just love the idea of aerial kills. Sort the Dobermains from the beagles so to speak. I am sure your kills will include a Neiuport or ten.

 

Any idea on colour schemes and engine?

 

Phil

 

 

[flyvulcan]

Colour scheme will be as for Josef Jacobs aircraft which is predominantly black. Jacobs obtained the most victories in the Dr1, 32 out of his total 48. He survived the war and did not participate at all in WW2. He lived to the ripe old age of around 78. I have his original signature in a book about fighter pilots that he autographed at an Aces get together in Germany in around 1975.

 

Engine is likely to be the VW based engine that Baslee recommends. I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head (oh dear, my senility is showing). Great Plains, Aerovee....

 

 

[flyvulcan]

And the horizontal stab is now completed. Today, we bent up the gussets for the second half, drilled and clecoed it all together, pulled it apart, deburred, cleaned, primed, reassembled and riveted.

 

 

 

After getting the second half done, all we had to do was the attach the cross brace between the left and right halves of the stab. This involved cutting and shaping the gussets, trimming the cross tube to length, rounding each end of the cross tube to fit nicely against the tubing at each end, then drilling the gussets, clecoing etc. etc.. The stab was finally completed. Yay!

 

 

The assembly is surprisingly rigid. We were concerned about flexibility with this sort of construction technique, but this piece certainly appears to be quite rigid.

 

Next it will be the elevators. Finishing that piece will complete the tailfeathers.

 

 

[flyvulcan]

After a long break, Steve and I got back into the workshop to carry on with the Fokker build. Today, we fabricated the components for the RH elevator.

 

A few months back, we had bent up the tubing for both the elevators. Today, we drilled the holes in the RH elevator spar to mount the trailing edge ribs into. We also drilled the end of the spar to secure the tubing into. Once the spar was drilled, we rounded the end of the trailing edge ribs to insert into the holes in the spar and would nest against the inside wall of the spar tubing opposite the hole in the spar.

 

Once the ribs were inserted into the spar, we marked then trimmed the ribs to their correct length. We cut them around 2mm oversized so that we could round the end to fit flush with the 1/2" tubing that attaches to the end of the ribs.

 

I drew the shape of the gussets onto the .020" sheet provided then cut and filed the 6 main gussets for the ribs.

 

I filed the hinge brackets to smooth their rough finish which is how they come in the kit then temporarily mounted them on to the elevator spar. We then placed the completed horizontal stab on our elevator jig so that we could align the leading edge of the elevator horns with the leading edge of the horizontal stab. We needed to bend the leading edge of the elevator horn out a little to align it all. We then marked the location of the leading edge rib and drilled the main spar hole to accept the leading edge rib. We then rough trimmed that rib to length.

 

Finally, we jigged all our handiwork up to check that it would all go together ok. This is what we ended up with:

 

 

 

It all lines up well so next session, we shall do the final trimming, put it all together with its gussets and rivet it up.

 

 

[flyvulcan]

Today, we continued with the RH elevator.

 

We started by fabricating the last strap to hold the inboard rib in place against the spar. This involved the usual bending of the strap, followed by clamping, drilling and clecoing the strap in place, ensuring that the rib was fully inserted into its hole in the spar and perpendicular to the spar. This last trailing edge rib aligned quite nicely with the first two ribs that had been mounted.

 

 

Once all 3 trailing edge ribs had been clecoed to the spar and their alignment was checked, we disassembled everything, deburred all components then scuffed, cleaned and primed all joints.

 

We then reassembled the structure using clecoes, then riveted it the trailing edge ribs to the spar.

 

 

 

Note the nice new pneumatic riveter. Wow, it makes it so much easier!!

 

And when all was finished, we jigged up the trailing/leading edge tubing to make it look like an elevator.

 

 

 

Our next session should see us finishing the RH elevator.

 

I will admit that in our enthusiasm to rivet the ribs to the spar, we forgot to insert the elevator hinge between the outboard and centre ribs. Consequently, we had to drill out the rivets on the end rib, remove the rib, slide the hinge onto the spar, then reassemble/rivet the outboard rib back on to the spar. We wasted 15 minutes fixing our stuff up but hey, that's building for you.

 

Today, we spent 3 hours doing what we did. It was fun and we felt that we had made positive and visible progress.

 

 

[flyvulcan]

Today, I fabricated and mounted the straps and gussets that go around the trailing edge tubing of the RH elevator and which hold it to the ribs.

 

I started by tracing and cutting the straps from .016" AL sheet then rounding the ends and smoothing the edges on the grinding/polishing wheels.

 

 

 

I then jigged up the RH elevator and ensured the edge tubing was in the correct position in relation to the spar and ribs. With it clamped, I drilled and clecoed firstly the outboard rib, followed by the inboard rib to the trailing edge tubing.

 

 

I then fabricated in the same fashion a small strap to hold the trailing edge inboard tubing to the spar.

 

 

In addition to the strap shown above, next build sessions I will fabricate two gussets to supplement this strap.

 

The last gusset that I fabricated was for the very inboard short rib to trailing edge joint. It was made from the supplied small square .020" AL sheets. I trimmed the ends and bent the gusset then mounted it is place using a few clamps.

 

 

I then drilled and clecoed this gusset in place.

 

 

That was it for today. It was about 3.5 hours for me to do that. Ok, I'm not the fastest builder, but there was a lot of filing, smoothing, dremelling, fitting, disassembling etc...

 

 

[flyvulcan]

Today, I started with fabricating the two gussets that connect the inboard end of the trailing edge tubing to the spar. The plans do not call for gussets, only joining the tube to the spar with a strap. However, we have decided to use a strap and supplement the strap with gussets.

 

The gussets started as a 3' square piece of .020" AL sheet which I simply cut in half from corner to opposite corner using tin snips. I then trimmed off the corners where the flange mounts to the spar. Next, I smoothed the edges of the gussets on the polishing grinder (or whatever its called). I then bent a 9mm wide flange along one edge of the gusset and drilled some 3/32" pilot holes. I then clamped the gusset to the tube/spar and drilled through the gusset pilot holes into the tube and spar, clecoing as I went. Once the first gusset was mounted, I flipped the tailplane and did the other side gusset. I pulled off both gussets and removed all drilling debris and reassembled the gussets into place. I then drilled out the holes to 1/8" then pulled apart again, deburred all parts and then reassembled again. Those gussets were now finished.

 

 

 

After finishing those gussets, I squeezed the ends of the spar where the tube passes through the cutouts in the spar end using a 12mm drill bit in place of the tubing and a wooden vise to do the squeezing. The vise got it fairly close but I needed to use a hammer to finish the squeeze.

 

Once the ends were squeezed, I reinserted the tubing and drilled and clecoed the tubing to the spar end.

 

I then fabricated and mounted the gusset that holds the leading edge rib to the spar. To do that, I had to attach the elevator to the horizontal stab using the correct hinges to ensure that the leading edge rib was parallel to the end of the stab. I then drilled and clecoed the gusset in place ensuring that the alignmenet of the leading edge rib was parallell to the trailing edge ribs.

 

I then fabricated the leading edge gusset which joins the leading edge rib to the leading edge tubing. The usual steps were taken to do this.

 

 

 

 

I still have to drill out the leading edge gussets to 1/8" and deburr etc. which wont take too long. I will then clean, prime and rivet the entire RH elevator structure. Can't wait!!

 

 

[flyvulcan]

It was on to the left elevator today. We started by jigging up the elevator to the horizontal stab to ensure symmetry between left and right sides and to ensure that we had the same gaps between the elevator horns and horizontal stab on both sides. The spar was trimmed to length, again ensuring that the size of the elevator horns was identical on both sides. While the elevators and horizontal stab were jigged to each other, ensuring that the right hand elevator was parallel to the stab, we marked the front and rear face of the main spar where the ribs would be mounted and ran a 90 degree angle along our table to mark the exact front and rear face of the spar where the ribs would be attached.

 

After the spar was trimmed to size, we accurately marked the location of all 4 ribs (3 trailing edge and one leading edge), then placed the spar gently into a wooden vise and used a hand drill to drill the 1/2" holes into the spar to slot the ribs into. We started with a 3/32" drill bit then worked our way out using around 10 incrementally larger drill bits to enlarge the size of the holes. They turned out very neat. The holes were deburred and were ready for the ribs.

 

 

 

We then trimmed the ribs to length and rounded/hollowed the ends to allow the rib ends to fit snug up against the inside radius of the spar and around the outside radius of the elevator bow. After overlaying our LH elevator bow over the riveted up RH elevator bow to ensure their shape was identical (a very small amount of additional bending was required), we trimmed the ends of the LH elevator bow to the final size. With all ribs/spar and bow then jigged up together, we left it there for tomorrow where we will finish and fit all gussets and get it all clecoed together.

 

 

 

 

[flyerme]

Lookin awesome. I'll be waiting our duell.

 

 

[flyvulcan]

Lookin awesome. I'll be waiting our duell.

Thanks Tim,

 

I just hope I get it finished before we are too old to have that duel!

 

Dave

 

 

[IBob]

What the Fokker ! :no no no:In 2 years time I will have accumulated enough kills to be an ACE, you may out perform and out gun me but all them kill stickers I will stick on will surley make me a formidable opponent?Ahh who am I kidding:surrender:

I am reminded of a story about a Free Polish fighter pilot, interviewed by the BBC some time after WW2.

 

He became very animated describing a dogfight: '...the Fokkers came out of the sun, then I had one on my tail...I turned and dived, but more Fokkers was there......'

 

The interviewer interrupted to say 'Er, I think I should explain to the listeners that a Fokker is a type of german fighter'

 

To which the Pole relied 'Yes, but these fokkers was Messerschmidts....'

 

 

[flyvulcan]

Today, we completed fabrication of all gussets and straps for the LH elevator then drilled and clecoed them all in place. We had to ensure that all ribs were set at 90 degrees to the spar and that all ribs and the bow were parallel to the right hand elevator. i.e they are both on the same plane.

 

It all worked out quite nicely.

 

We need to check a feature of the plans with the designer, Robert Baslee before we can rivet the structure. I expect that by our next build session that we shall have the answer from Robert so that we can complete the fabrication and then do all the prep for riveting.

 

 

 

 

 

[flyvulcan]

Left hand elevator

 

It was back into the workshop today for another 2 hours.

 

Last workshop, I had drilled all holes out to 1/8" and deburred everything. I also cleaned and scuffed the areas that would be primed then left it at that which is where I picked up today.

 

I cleaned all areas to be primed then after the primer had dried, I reassembled the LH elevator to ensure that it aligned with the RH elevator before starting riveting.

 

Priming parts:

 

 

And then reassembling:

 

 

I then started riveting but I clearly did not have enough rivets so I riveted selectively. I have placed an order with Aircraft Spruce for another 150 rivets which should come in in about 10 days (its a long way to the Middle East!!). I'll then finish it off.

 

 

 

An issue that I had was related to the location and method of attachment of the elevator hinges. There was zero guidance in the "plans". I went ahead and equally spaced the 4 hinges along the spar. The plans called for a dowel rod to be inserted inside the spar of the elevator to act as a crush resistor for the inboard left hand hinge where the elevator horn attaches. I had turned up a suitable piece of wood (no dowel to be found here) and carefully inserted it into the spar to the correct depth for the location of the inboard LH hinge. I then riveted that hinge in place in order to hold the "dowel" in place. I have subsequently phoned Robert Baslee to ask about the rivets and at the same time, I asked about the hinges. Well apparently, the details about the location and method of attachment for the hinges is included in the flight control kit... Also, the hinges are secured using a single 3/16" rivet while their locations are predicated by the elevator runs... Another also is that there is no longer the need for the crush "dowel" as the hinge is an extrusion/sleeve that fits over the OD of the elevator spar and acts as a doubler to prevent crushing anyway. I wish I'd known this all before I located and riveted the hinge in place... Still, Robert said it would all be ok so I dont need to worry about it but I don't like doing things wrong...

 

My next post should be to show you my finished tailplane. Woo hoo.

 

By the way, so far the build log shows around 90 hours. Roberts guidance is that what we have done should be finished in 9 hours! Still, things happens a lot faster now that we know how the system works, but all the drilling twice (3/32' then 1/8"), deburring, smoothing of gusset edges, cleaning, priming etc. clearly adds a lot more time over Roberts methods.

 

 

[Litespeed]

Keep up the proper work mate.

 

The Robert method always looks a bit slipshod to me, remember you are the one who will fly it. And you want it to do more than a 100 hours.

 

What sort of rivets are you using and how much is 150 of them?

 

How many are needed for the aircraft?

 

 

[flyvulcan]

Hi Phil,

 

I certainly want it to last longer than 100 hours so am putting more effort into doing something that will last.

 

Robert Baslee advised 1/8" x 1/8" grip length steel protruding head rivets. I ordered 150 Cherry N steel rivets from AS and the cost for those 150 was $3.60 plus a couple of dollars shipping to my US forwarding service. Just under $6 all up.

 

To be honest, I don't know how many are used in the complete aircraft. I only have the tail plane kit so far. I'll order the remaining kits when I get back to Oz permanently later this year. The correct number are supposed to come with the kit but because I have been using straps where Robert drills a hole through the one side of a tube and screws through the far side to join it to a dowel rod that is squeezed into the end of the tube that it is attaching to, I have been using more rivets than planned.

 

 

[Litespeed]

Not as expensive as I thought for the rivets.

 

Hurry up and get back to paradise and build the rest.

 

Cheers