CMR 1/72 Fokker D.XXIII

Started by Bob Torres · 30 · 2 years ago
  • Profile Photo
    Bob Torres said 2 years, 3 months ago:

    This is a CMR (Czech Master Resin) kit that I picked up from eBay last year rather cheaply, I was the only bidder. As you can see it does have its issues. I will need to straighten out the twin booms and tail area. The wings will also need some help. It does have rather nice thin recessed panel lines. The canopy is a vacuform. I have never seen this kit built anywhere so I will be winging this build.

    A little history on this plane:
    The Fokker D.XXIII was designed as a twin-engined single-seat aircraft. To overcome the problems of asymmetric flight it had a tractor engine at the front and a pusher engine at the rear. The D.XXIII was a cantilever monoplane with the twin tail units on booms. The pilot had an enclosed cockpit in between the tractor and pusher engines and it had a retractable tricycle landing gear.

    The prototype first flew on 30 May 1939 powered by two Walter Sagitta I-SR air cooled vee piston engines. The trial flights identified problems with the cooling of the rear engine and general engine performance. It was proposed to use Rolls-Royce or Daimler-Benz engines in the production aircraft. Concerns were also raised about the pilot clearing the rear propeller if he had to bail out and an ejector seat was studied. As a provisional solution, rails were put on both sides of the forward fuselage for the Fokker test pilot, Gerben Sonderman, to use to bail out in an emergency. The aircraft was flown 11 times for a total flight time of less than four hours. The rear fuselage paneling was modified significantly before the last few flights in an attempt to address chronic rear engine cooling problems. On the 11th flight in April, the undercarriage was damaged, and the program was abandoned in May 1940 when the German forces invaded the Netherlands.

    7 attached images. Click to enlarge.

  • Profile Photo
    Bob Torres said 2 years, 3 months ago:

    Here are some shots showing the parts for this kit. The first two shots show the twin boom/tail area issues. There are some air pockets in the bottom left-wing area. There are also some in the twin booms. They are small so it should not be an issue to fill.

    8 attached images. Click to enlarge.

  • Profile Photo
    Bob Torres said 2 years, 3 months ago:

    My first attempts on straightening the twin boom, tail and wings. I am using hot water to do this. It is nowhere near boiling temp…

    4 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 2 years, 3 months ago:

    What a great entry, my friend @v1pro! Great remedial action regarding the horizontal stabilizer straightening! This will be a superb looking model once finished!

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    John vd Biggelaar said 2 years, 3 months ago:

    Love to see this one finished, Bob @v1pro
    Good to see that you were able to solve bending issue.
    This Fokker would look great next to the DXXI and G1.

  • Profile Photo
    Bob Torres said 2 years, 3 months ago:

    Thank you Spiros @fiveten and John @johnb. The hot water did the trick...the tail plane will need a little bit more tweaking later on.

    Having this build next to a G.XXI and G.5 would be pretty cool to see. I still need to build the G.5. I have the Rareplane vacuform kit in my stash of this aircraft.

    This Fokker G.XXXIII is not exactly a big plane. It is about the same size of a P-51.

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    Jay Mitchell said 2 years, 3 months ago:

    An interesting aircraft that I’ve never seen ! You pick some cool subjects Bob @v1pro.

  • Profile Photo
    Bob Torres said 2 years, 3 months ago:

    An interesting plane it certainly is Jay @ssgt. In the last 2 years I have developed a good interest in Fokker's planes from that time period. I am pretty curious on how this build will end up looking.

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    Jay Mitchell said 2 years, 3 months ago:

    Fokker seemed to be an innovative company. I was fortunate to have worked on the Fokker 100 . It looked commonplace but it had some unique construction features. My employer named it the F-100 out of concern that the general public might confuse Fokker with some other F word .

    1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 2 years, 3 months ago:

    @v1pro, @ssgt, indeed a pitty that Fokker does not build entire aircraft anymore. They developed some very interesting aircraft, starting with the Spin (spider) by Anthony himself.

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    Jay Mitchell said 2 years, 3 months ago:

    I’ve never seen the “ spider” aircraft, @johnb, I’ll have to find some photos of it. It’s a shame so many aviation companies have died off or been absorbed by larger companies , like predatory fish eating each other. For large aircraft, the gene pool is getting smaller and smaller. Boeing & Lockheed are about all that’s left making complete large airplanes in the US of A.

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    Tom Cleaver said 2 years, 3 months ago:

    You're certainly a braver modeler than I with this kit. But it looks like you're overcoming things and with "some modeling skills required" you'll conquer it and create something out of the ordinary.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 2 years, 3 months ago:

    @ssgt, the Fokker Spin (Spider) was the first aircraft build by Fokker in 1911
    Pretty obvious why they called it Spider.

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    Jay Mitchell said 2 years, 3 months ago:

    That’s an amazing piece of engineering, @johnb ! Thanks for posting that photograph. Aircraft design advanced very quickly in the early days.

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    Bob Torres said 2 years, 3 months ago:

    Air pockets in the resin. A few were deep, filled them with first with Vallejo filler which did not work well. So instead I used Tester's putty/filler and that worked great!

    2 attached images. Click to enlarge.