Originally Posted by mytms

Anybody heard of the top center section - cabane attachment points failing and losing the top wings on these? I was about to pull the trigger on one til I heard this.

I had one of the attachment points come loose. I’ve also had a couple of the bolts come loose. I fly pretty aggressively and check them often. This is season 2 for me.

I did have the rudder come off this weekend. 2 of the hinges broke And the 3rd pulled out. Putting robart pin style hinges in. Again I fly pretty aggressively. It made for quite a show landing with the rudder hanging off the back.

If you’re looking for a WW1 plane this is a nice flying bird.

Another one close to its maiden - bashing took a little bit longer but pays off.
- Scalloped the wing TEs.
- Weathering of the dummy engine, wheels and airframe, then flat clear coated with automotive 2-part, sprayed from a distance - texture cannot be distinguished from fabric.
- Cockpit re-done, incl a brass dummy fuel tank, instrument panel and throttle quadrant, fake tubing and lozenge fabric on the inside sidewalls.
- Williams Bros guns.
- Pilot from Best pilots - animated head.
- Tailplane bottom bracing as per 1:1.
- Raven graphics painted on (with... Left-Right mirror symmetry this time)

A little "overdone" to look good @ 3-5meter stand-off distance and not to lose the "detail" in the air.

Motor is a Valach 60cc 4-Stroke.

Some details from the cockpit.
- New dash (varnished natural finish).
- New instruments
- Fake frame tubing
- Ammo box clad in litho and weathered (just a black wash)
- Dummy brass tank, similarly weathered.
- Pilot without lower parts to save weight (also not that visible once in...)

awesome work......I will send mine down to you :-)

Well done hpergm!
Beautiful weathering work!
What was your technique?

Absolutely incredible. A thousand Kudo's

Dear all, many thanks for your kind feedback. Excluding the cockpit hack, the rest was not that hard to do...

The weathering technique was simple:
- Scrub the covering with steel wool to roughen it up
- Prepare a very dilute mix of flat black
- Spray with an airbrush as required
- Seal with 2-part Automotive flat clear

OK, now for the Secrets:
- Use 6mm Tamiya masking tape to mask the parts of the covering where the underlying structure would "show through"; fuz tubing, stab tubing, wing rib apexes.
- Use a good 3-view to have the correct locations and take care to do it symmetrically.
- Spray the black right on the narrow masking tape - the sharp "cut" of the color at the tape edge and the overspray "fade" give the right illusion of "depth" and "grit" from a stand-off scale distance. Nothing smart here, just notice how the illustrators of the rendered 3-views play with their color to bring a 2D drawing "alive"...
- Some inconsistency on the "strength" of the color adds to the illusion.
- "Shade" any other surface/type overlap or change: e.g. at the edges of the glued cowl cheeks.
- Take care not to overdo it on the white parts - a little dirt shows a lot. Red is more forgiving. Random "splotch" spraying between the tubing fades adds to the illusion of a "war-weary fabric".
- Pre-shade the wheels to bring up the detail.
- Use some diluted flat white to highlight the surface between the black fades between the wing ribs and the red valleys.
- Use same flat white to "light-fade" the stark black color of the wing crosses and edge trim of the tailplane (if you are going ahead the Monnington scheme).
- One of the major things to note is that once a decision is made to scallop the TEs, the physical location of the ribs in the wing does not anymore coincide with the scallop apexes. So, the weathering effect must be striking enough to "throw the eye out", away from this inconsistency (the illusion works very well).
- When spraying the flat clear, do it non-diluted (I used a small HVLP with a 0.5mm tip) and from a longer distance than usual; this allows the droplets additional flight-time to dry-up a little and create a rough overcoat - looks and feels just like fabric!

Some pics from the flat clear step of the process.

Great tutorial!
Thank you!

The only thing I would add, would be to use white glue rib stitching before the final wash to add depth.

Scott

Can someone tell me which post has the video that Ali made of the Fokker with the sound system?
Thanks, Steve

Not sure about the post but here's the vid.:

On The Fly: Hangar 9 Fokker DVII (6 min 56 sec)

Plane was maidened today. A sweet flyer indeed.

First take off was hands-off (literally - I was able to take hands off the controls for the climb out - much to the bemusement of by-standers. Rock solid, I tell you.).

Some beauty shots in the field and a short vid of the 3rd flight of the day. Well worth the hassle of converting it to fit the engine, the 4-stroke sound is a great fit to the presence of the model.

Good job Ali!

Hangar 9 Fokker DVII 60cc Maiden (1 min 58 sec)

Hello Hypergm!
Excellent maiden flight!
That engine sounds so great!

I've been AWOL for too long. Got diverted working on other projects. Finally starting to fly the Yellow D-VII. Sadly, the the Laser V-300 sounded cool, but just didn't have the power my skill level needed to make flying the plane "fun". Nursing the plane around the pattern was stressful, and running at full throttle nearly all the time resulted in over heating and deadstick landings. I switched out the Laser for a DLE 55ra, and the fun quotient increased exponentially. I'm loving the plane even more now. Flies at 1/4 throttle most of the time but has plenty of punch for some non scale acrobatics and fun. Can't seem to make it stall. It just floats along until it mushes over with a slight nod to the left. It lands like my Tigermoth, floating in lazy and slow. Still got to get it down to Eli for Ali to check it out. I was hoping to take it to RC Fest and sit it next to a stock one for a fun comparison, but too bad most events are cancelled. Next year!? Meanwhile I'm lovin' it!

I like what you guys are doing. The weathering or color changes are nice. Im thinking of small trim change on mine but sure which way Im going to go.