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Eduard 1/48 Fokker E.V

By Mike Whye

Overview

If you’re looking for a kit of a World War One aircraft that’s simple to build without a lot of wires running every which way, the 1/48 Fokker E.V by Eduard is the kit for you.   Inside this Weekend Edition kit (Eduard #8480) are three sprues of medium-brown styrene plastic, a set of decals depicting one aircraft and a set of instructions.   This takes me back to the kits in which I would see nothing fancy, just the basics and this is just that…..and mind you, Eduard’s basics can make some other kits look fairly bleak by comparison.   

First, a bit of history since the instructions don‘t have any.   The Fokker E.V began its life in early 1918 when aircraft designer Reinhold Platz, of Fokker-Flugzeugwerke, came up with two prototypes of a high-wing monoplane (also called a parasol monoplane) that had a rotary engine and a steel-tube frame, plywood-covered fuselage.   Of the prototypes, the one called the V.26 was ordered into production with the Oberural UR II engine, which produced 110 horsepower, and in July of that year, the aircraft, renamed as the Fokker E.V, began arriving at five frontline units of the Luftstreitkräfte

However, soon after their entry into aerial combat, two of the Fokker E.V’s suffer wing failure and crashed, killing at least one pilot.    All E.V’s were grounded until the wing was re-designed.  Some accounts also said the wing failures were caused by shoddy workmanship on the part of a subcontractor.

The revamped E.V’s began arriving on the front once more in October 1918 and were now called Fokker D.VIII.   In combat for only 18 days before the war ended, the E.V or D.VIII had little opportunity to prove itself as a fighter.   The Polish Air Force, however, used 17 captured E.V’s but flew only seven of them against the Soviets during the Polish-Soviet War in 1919-1920.

For some reason, even though the E.V hardly saw combat (although it scored the last German aerial victory of the war), some Allied pilots nicknamed it “The Flying Razor.”

Measuring 19 feet and 4 inches long with a wingspan of 27 feet and 7 inches, the E.V had a maximum speed of 127 mph and a ceiling of more than 20,000 feet.   It carried two 7.92 mm Spandau MG08 machine guns.

And a personal note here.  Considering the Fokker E.V suffered wing failures, for whatever reason, early in its career, I could not help but think back to a favorite movie of mine from years ago, “The Blue Max.”   In it, a German general wants a young pilot to fly a new experimental monoplane….a young pilot who’s been lusting after the general’s young wife…..and the wing fails, the pilot dies and that’s the movie, folks.  I haven’t seen the movie in years so I don’t know if the monoplane was an E.V, or resembled an E.V or was just some Hollywood configuration of a WW I monoplane but seeing this kit sure made me think of “The Blue Max” and its monoplane.

The Kit

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As mentioned, the kit has three sprues.  A Sprue contains two wings, no upper and lower portions, just two complete wings.   Without explaining why, the instructions let you choose which one you want, parts A1 or A2.   The only difference I can see between them is that A1 appears to have one less panel line on the upper surface than A2. 

B Sprue has the fuselage halves, tail plane, prop, engine wiring harness, wheels, forward fuselage top, engine cowling, engine and some other pieces.  

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C Sprue has the finer details, many of which go into detailing the cockpit which has 16 pieces in its construction--so you get a pretty fine cockpit even without all the photo-etch details of the more costly kit. As with other Eduard kits, many pieces are very fine which means easy to break so take care.  

One thing that I’m not sure about is a windshield. None was in the box nor is one shown in the instructions although the diagrams on the box top’s side panels show a faint line where a windshield would be.   Historical photos I have seen of the E.V aren’t good enough to discern if the real plane had a windshield so at this point, I can’t comment any further about the plane having a windshield or not. If the real E.V’s didn’t have windshields, I hope the pilots had very good goggles.

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All pieces are well made and, excepting two ejector marks on the bottom of C8 (the wide flat strut between the wheels) which can be sanded away in a few seconds, the only marks I could see will be hidden during construction. The pieces also have a good depiction of fabric surfaces and wood panels and the cooling jackets of the machine guns look very fine.

Construction is pretty straight-forward as shown in five pages of the instructions.   You will have to pay close attention to where the various supports go--the wings and fuselage pieces have easy-to-overlook locators for the struts. No wires are provided nor is there a good diagram of where they go but mercifully you need only two brace wires between the landing gear struts.

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The kit has one set of decals, showing an aircraft flown by Theo Osterkamp of the Marine Feld Jagdstaffel II in Belgium in 1918.  

With an olive green wing and a black-and-yellow-banded fuselage, much like a yellow jacket, the kit builds into a colorful display. I wish the instructions gave a clue as to how wide the 12 black and yellow bands are supposed to be.   For ease of measuring and dividing, I used the metric measurements and the 3-7/8-inch fuselage measures out to 98 mm. Divide that into 12 panels and I get just over 8 mm per band width (gosh, that sounds like a radio wavelength…..). So if that information helps you, it’s yours to use!

Conclusion

Overall, this is a simple kit to build although its fuselage bands may be a challenge for some to paint. If you don’t like the scheme offered in this kit, you can search for AeroMaster’s 48-187 sheet which depicts a Fokker with a fantastic-looking blue, green and tan lozenge pattern on the fuselage.    

Built by Eduard, the Weekend Edition kit #8480 of the 1/48 scale Fokker E.V has a MSRP of $19.95 and is well worth it.  

Thanks to Eduard for the review model.

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