This was the first airplane to be equipped
with an interrupter gear to allow the
machine gun to be fired through the
propeller arc without shooting the propeller.
This feature made the Eindecker a terrifying
adversary for the French and British pilots
early in World War I, until someone crashlanded
one behind the lines and the Allies
quickly copied it and incorporated the
mechanism into their aircraft.
The Eindecker, and many other fighters
of the World War I era, were powered with
rotary engines. Notice that I didn’t write
“radial” engines! Radial and rotary engines
are both round, but with a huge difference.
Rotary units have the crankshaft fixed to
the aircraft engine mounts. The propeller is
bolted to the engine casing, to which the
cylinders are attached. When the engine is
started, it rotates, and when each cylinder
fires, the thrust of the power stroke is
against the fixed, cammed crankshaft in
such a way that a force is exerted in the
direction of the engine’s rotation.
In the rotary engine, the crankcase rotates and the crankshaft is
fixed. A radial engine is also round, but the crankshaft rotates the
propeller while the cylinders and crankcase remain still. As one
considers this arrangement, we can only speculate how much torque
that mass of rotating engine must have induced.
Additionally, because of the complexity, these engines did not
have throttles; the fuel was injected into the cylinder as it passed a
D.B. Mathews
F l y i n g f o r F u n
909 N. Maize Rd., Townhouse 734, Wichita KS 67212
PROOF OF THE PUDDING: I’ve used that phrase all my life and
have no idea what it really means! Presumably, as used, it means
tasting the cooked product to ascertain its quality. That being the case,
flying a model-airplane construction project would fit the phrase,
wouldn’t it?
When I wrote the March 2005 column, Pat Mc Greevy had finished
his SR Batteries Eindecker just in time for me to take photos to beat
the deadline for the copy. It had not been flown. We had some doubts
about whether or not he would find flyable weather in December,
because it gets very windy and cold in the high plains that time of year.
After weeks of waiting, Pat and Mike Tallman got so impatient (I’ll
bet you know the feeling) to test-fly the model that they finally, in
semidesperation, flew it in 15 mph winds and 45° temperatures on
December 11.
Pat reports that it flew with no trim changes and very docilely,
similar to a light-wing-loaded trainer. That’s not really a surprise,
considering its size, light weight, and Clark Y airfoil. He found that
nice, flat turns could be done with just the rudder, and ailerons
remained effective even with the model slowed to less than a walk’s
pace.
As anticipated, the Zenoah G-26 engine provided more than
enough power—even in the wind and with all the built-in headwind
from that huge, round cowl. Loops tracked true with some
differential aileron programmed in, rolls were axial, and the model
was a pussycat to land. The only negative was that it had to be
slowed way down to get it to stop flying.
I have not previously mentioned this, but the SR Batteries
Eindecker is designed for electric power as an alternative. The
drawings and instructions cover this power choice extensively.
I’ve been intrigued by Pat’s excitement about building a model
since I see him as a typical contemporary RC modeler, with one
exception: he just completed his 14th year with a transplanted heart!
One Wing: Did you learn to count in German as a kid or in school?
It’s eins, zwei, drei, etc. Logically then, the German word
Eindecker refers to a monoplane (one wing or deck). However,
there are a few things about a Fokker Eindecker that might not be
such common knowledge.
94 MODEL AVIATION
Pat Mc Greevy’s Eindecker built from an SR Batteries kit flies by realistically. The pilot
adds a great deal to the illusion. Photo by Dale Williams.
Will Hubin photographed Dave Johnson’s F&B Models Old Time
CL Stunt airplane at the top of a Wingover at the Brodak Fly-In.
96 MODEL AVIATION
point. As a consequence, the pilot slowed the power plant by
“blipping” the ignition switch on and off, hence the characteristic
“burp, burp” sound one hears at Rhinebeck and in old movies as
these airplanes are landed.
Another oddity of the Eindecker’s Oberusel power plant is that it
started life as a license-built French Gnome, but with the guns of
August 1914 it was simply copied without royalties. Therefore, the
power plants in the French Nieuport 11 and the British F.E.8 were
nearly identical to the Eindecker’s.
This information is from Fokker Eindecker in Action—a neat
Squadron/Signal booklet that is included with the SR Batteries kit. It
is packed with drawings, photos, and text.
A Rare One: A recent issue of the North Coast Controliners’
(Cleveland, Ohio) newsletter included a Wingover photo of a kit
design I had not seen in at least 50 years. I immediately contacted
editor Will Hubin, and he kindly supplied
the picture.
The CL kits of F-B Models of Denver,
Colorado, were rather popular in the late
1940s and early 1950s, at least here in
Kansas and in Colorado. The 60-size Viking
and the 29-size Vampire were relatively easy
to build, with their fuselages supplied with
preglued formers. (An early case of
prefabrication?)
These models bore more than a casual
resemblance to Jim Saftig’s immortal Super
Duper Zilch, but as I recall they were not as
sturdy. The wing, for some reason, did not
have a spar anywhere between the 1⁄16-inch
sheeted LE and the preformed TE!
I remember building and flying a
Vampire with an O&R .29 front-rotary-valve
engine on glow. It flew quite well, but it
didn’t last long since I was trying to learn to
fly models inverted at the time (1951)!
Dave Johnson’s contemporary Viking was
built from plans developed from Les Nering’s
old kit. It is powered with a restored McCoy
silver-case .40 engine. Dave won Old Time
Stunt at the Brodak Fly-In last year and earned
first place in the North Coast Annual.
If you are interested in either of these CL old-timers from
beautifully drawn, accurate full-size plans or many of the Sterling,
Veco, Testors, PDQ, and Kenhi CL models, contact Bill Schmidt
(4647 Krueger St., Wichita KS 67220; Tel.: [316] 744-0378). A list
of these CL models and many FF (Gas and Rubber), Nostalgia, and
lovely RC Texaco Scale designs is available from him if you supply
a #10 SASE.
Some of you younger readers might be interested to learn that
many FF and CL kits of the early 1950s did not include full-size
drawings—only reduced size and isometric. This was to prevent
the builder from constructing another model from the drawings!
To get around this, many of us traced the kit parts onto
appropriate-size wood to inexpensively create a duplicate. The CL
and many of the Nostalgia FF designs on Bill’s list were
originally supplied with reduced-size drawings.
An exception to all of the preceding were the Berkeley Models
kits. The plans were of excellent quality, many of which were
drawn by the late Don McGovern long before he became editor of
Flying Models. Unfortunately the kit quality rarely matched the
quality of the drawings.
Necessity, the Mother of ... Modelers as a group have always
been remarkable innovators. This was demonstrated rather
spectacularly on Sunday, December 26 at the Lake Afton flying
field here in Wichita.
Mark Cole was flying his beautiful, large de Havilland
Mosquito ARF when it suffered a total radio failure and crashed
roughly 2,000 yards away, onto the frozen surface of the lake. The
ice was much too thin to safely walk on to recover the remains.
The Mosquito had crashed pretty well flat and was intact but
badly clobbered.
After some head-scratching among the modelers present,
someone mentioned that he had a four-wheel-drive RC truck in his
car. The model truck was charged up, a length of nylon binder
twine someone else had was tied to it, and then it was run out onto
the ice. Dragging the twine around and around the remains, they
then successfully drug it approximately 50 yards to shore. Isn’t
that clever?
The postmortem revealed that the battery-pack connectors had
separated during a roll; nothing else was wrong with the RC
system. Most of us are aware of the need to lock servo connectors
together with tie wraps or tape, but this accident warns us that we
should also secure the battery connection and stuff the pack in
place with foam rubber. MA
Terry Holley’s front tag spells out the state of affairs in Kansas in late December.
An F-B Models advertisement from the September 1951 Air Trails
magazine. Carl Malmsten designed these airplanes.
04sig3.QXD 2/25/05 11:23 am Page 96
Edition: Model Aviation - 2005/04
Page Numbers: 94,96
Edition: Model Aviation - 2005/04
Page Numbers: 94,96
This was the first airplane to be equipped
with an interrupter gear to allow the
machine gun to be fired through the
propeller arc without shooting the propeller.
This feature made the Eindecker a terrifying
adversary for the French and British pilots
early in World War I, until someone crashlanded
one behind the lines and the Allies
quickly copied it and incorporated the
mechanism into their aircraft.
The Eindecker, and many other fighters
of the World War I era, were powered with
rotary engines. Notice that I didn’t write
“radial” engines! Radial and rotary engines
are both round, but with a huge difference.
Rotary units have the crankshaft fixed to
the aircraft engine mounts. The propeller is
bolted to the engine casing, to which the
cylinders are attached. When the engine is
started, it rotates, and when each cylinder
fires, the thrust of the power stroke is
against the fixed, cammed crankshaft in
such a way that a force is exerted in the
direction of the engine’s rotation.
In the rotary engine, the crankcase rotates and the crankshaft is
fixed. A radial engine is also round, but the crankshaft rotates the
propeller while the cylinders and crankcase remain still. As one
considers this arrangement, we can only speculate how much torque
that mass of rotating engine must have induced.
Additionally, because of the complexity, these engines did not
have throttles; the fuel was injected into the cylinder as it passed a
D.B. Mathews
F l y i n g f o r F u n
909 N. Maize Rd., Townhouse 734, Wichita KS 67212
PROOF OF THE PUDDING: I’ve used that phrase all my life and
have no idea what it really means! Presumably, as used, it means
tasting the cooked product to ascertain its quality. That being the case,
flying a model-airplane construction project would fit the phrase,
wouldn’t it?
When I wrote the March 2005 column, Pat Mc Greevy had finished
his SR Batteries Eindecker just in time for me to take photos to beat
the deadline for the copy. It had not been flown. We had some doubts
about whether or not he would find flyable weather in December,
because it gets very windy and cold in the high plains that time of year.
After weeks of waiting, Pat and Mike Tallman got so impatient (I’ll
bet you know the feeling) to test-fly the model that they finally, in
semidesperation, flew it in 15 mph winds and 45° temperatures on
December 11.
Pat reports that it flew with no trim changes and very docilely,
similar to a light-wing-loaded trainer. That’s not really a surprise,
considering its size, light weight, and Clark Y airfoil. He found that
nice, flat turns could be done with just the rudder, and ailerons
remained effective even with the model slowed to less than a walk’s
pace.
As anticipated, the Zenoah G-26 engine provided more than
enough power—even in the wind and with all the built-in headwind
from that huge, round cowl. Loops tracked true with some
differential aileron programmed in, rolls were axial, and the model
was a pussycat to land. The only negative was that it had to be
slowed way down to get it to stop flying.
I have not previously mentioned this, but the SR Batteries
Eindecker is designed for electric power as an alternative. The
drawings and instructions cover this power choice extensively.
I’ve been intrigued by Pat’s excitement about building a model
since I see him as a typical contemporary RC modeler, with one
exception: he just completed his 14th year with a transplanted heart!
One Wing: Did you learn to count in German as a kid or in school?
It’s eins, zwei, drei, etc. Logically then, the German word
Eindecker refers to a monoplane (one wing or deck). However,
there are a few things about a Fokker Eindecker that might not be
such common knowledge.
94 MODEL AVIATION
Pat Mc Greevy’s Eindecker built from an SR Batteries kit flies by realistically. The pilot
adds a great deal to the illusion. Photo by Dale Williams.
Will Hubin photographed Dave Johnson’s F&B Models Old Time
CL Stunt airplane at the top of a Wingover at the Brodak Fly-In.
96 MODEL AVIATION
point. As a consequence, the pilot slowed the power plant by
“blipping” the ignition switch on and off, hence the characteristic
“burp, burp” sound one hears at Rhinebeck and in old movies as
these airplanes are landed.
Another oddity of the Eindecker’s Oberusel power plant is that it
started life as a license-built French Gnome, but with the guns of
August 1914 it was simply copied without royalties. Therefore, the
power plants in the French Nieuport 11 and the British F.E.8 were
nearly identical to the Eindecker’s.
This information is from Fokker Eindecker in Action—a neat
Squadron/Signal booklet that is included with the SR Batteries kit. It
is packed with drawings, photos, and text.
A Rare One: A recent issue of the North Coast Controliners’
(Cleveland, Ohio) newsletter included a Wingover photo of a kit
design I had not seen in at least 50 years. I immediately contacted
editor Will Hubin, and he kindly supplied
the picture.
The CL kits of F-B Models of Denver,
Colorado, were rather popular in the late
1940s and early 1950s, at least here in
Kansas and in Colorado. The 60-size Viking
and the 29-size Vampire were relatively easy
to build, with their fuselages supplied with
preglued formers. (An early case of
prefabrication?)
These models bore more than a casual
resemblance to Jim Saftig’s immortal Super
Duper Zilch, but as I recall they were not as
sturdy. The wing, for some reason, did not
have a spar anywhere between the 1⁄16-inch
sheeted LE and the preformed TE!
I remember building and flying a
Vampire with an O&R .29 front-rotary-valve
engine on glow. It flew quite well, but it
didn’t last long since I was trying to learn to
fly models inverted at the time (1951)!
Dave Johnson’s contemporary Viking was
built from plans developed from Les Nering’s
old kit. It is powered with a restored McCoy
silver-case .40 engine. Dave won Old Time
Stunt at the Brodak Fly-In last year and earned
first place in the North Coast Annual.
If you are interested in either of these CL old-timers from
beautifully drawn, accurate full-size plans or many of the Sterling,
Veco, Testors, PDQ, and Kenhi CL models, contact Bill Schmidt
(4647 Krueger St., Wichita KS 67220; Tel.: [316] 744-0378). A list
of these CL models and many FF (Gas and Rubber), Nostalgia, and
lovely RC Texaco Scale designs is available from him if you supply
a #10 SASE.
Some of you younger readers might be interested to learn that
many FF and CL kits of the early 1950s did not include full-size
drawings—only reduced size and isometric. This was to prevent
the builder from constructing another model from the drawings!
To get around this, many of us traced the kit parts onto
appropriate-size wood to inexpensively create a duplicate. The CL
and many of the Nostalgia FF designs on Bill’s list were
originally supplied with reduced-size drawings.
An exception to all of the preceding were the Berkeley Models
kits. The plans were of excellent quality, many of which were
drawn by the late Don McGovern long before he became editor of
Flying Models. Unfortunately the kit quality rarely matched the
quality of the drawings.
Necessity, the Mother of ... Modelers as a group have always
been remarkable innovators. This was demonstrated rather
spectacularly on Sunday, December 26 at the Lake Afton flying
field here in Wichita.
Mark Cole was flying his beautiful, large de Havilland
Mosquito ARF when it suffered a total radio failure and crashed
roughly 2,000 yards away, onto the frozen surface of the lake. The
ice was much too thin to safely walk on to recover the remains.
The Mosquito had crashed pretty well flat and was intact but
badly clobbered.
After some head-scratching among the modelers present,
someone mentioned that he had a four-wheel-drive RC truck in his
car. The model truck was charged up, a length of nylon binder
twine someone else had was tied to it, and then it was run out onto
the ice. Dragging the twine around and around the remains, they
then successfully drug it approximately 50 yards to shore. Isn’t
that clever?
The postmortem revealed that the battery-pack connectors had
separated during a roll; nothing else was wrong with the RC
system. Most of us are aware of the need to lock servo connectors
together with tie wraps or tape, but this accident warns us that we
should also secure the battery connection and stuff the pack in
place with foam rubber. MA
Terry Holley’s front tag spells out the state of affairs in Kansas in late December.
An F-B Models advertisement from the September 1951 Air Trails
magazine. Carl Malmsten designed these airplanes.
04sig3.QXD 2/25/05 11:23 am Page 96