Detailing Huma's 1/72 Fieseler Fi 5 Sportplane
|
 |
History
Gerhard Fieseler was a World War
1 fighter pilot with Jasta 25 on the Macedonian front, achieving 19 confirmed
aerial victories. After the war he served as an instructor, then manager
for the Raab Katzenstien aircraft company until its demise, after which
he founded his own company, FieselerFlugzeugbau, in 1930. Winner of the
1932 European Aerobatic Championship he also won 1934s World Aerobatic
Championship, flying the Fieseler Fi 2 Tiger, a one of a kind biplane
designed and built by his company. At this event he witnessed the deaths
of two of the other pilots as well as several crashes and he retired from
competitive aerobatics afterwards.
Buit in 1934, the Fieseler Fi 5 was among the company's most popular
designs and was powered by the Hirth HM 60, then the more powerful Hirth
HM 60R engine. Similar in appearance to the inherantly stable Klemm Kl
25, the Fieseler Fi 5's shorter wings resulted in very different handling
characteristics that experienced pilots preferred.
The Kit:
 My
first impression upon opening the medium sized box of the Huma Fieseler
Fi 5 was one of surprise, the small sprue of parts, decal sheet and instructions
occupying very little of the box. As the Xacto blade in the photo of the
kit's contents shows, the Fieseler is quite a small kit but is fairly
accurate and a good starting point for a more detailed model. The wings,
elevators and landing gear are all given as solid parts while the fuselage
is provided in two halves.
The wings and elevators have nice trailing edges and the kit as a whole
was nicely molded and relatively flash free. The cockpit is pretty sparse
with only a floor, seats, control sticks and two pilot figures to obscure
what is lacking. A cover for the front cockpit is provided, but this seems
to have only been used on aircraft used for acrobatics and on one advertising
aircraft. Dry fitting of the parts showed little in the way of construction
problems.
The decals are nice and provide markings for two machines in overall
RLM 05 Cream, one a participant in the 1935 Deutschlandflug, an annual
German air rally. This aircraft, D-EZEF, was an entry from the DLV-Ortsgruppe
Danzig (B1), one of the many regional flight schools which evolved into
the fledgling Luftwaffe, and makes for quite a colorful option.
Construction:
To do a good job of this kit the first thing to do is round up some
reference material and this actually proves to be one of the biggest challenges
of building this kit. For whatever reason this aircraft is very poorly
documented, with only 25 or so photos found after many hours online, but
what I did find proved to be very helpful. Unfortunatly no cockpit photos
were found but the written material provided with the kit states that
the fuselage was a fabric covered metal tube construction so I used photos
and drawings of other German lightplanes of the period to approxomate
some structural bits for the cockpit. These were added from stretched
sprue after the cockpit sides were painted with Polly Scale Dirty White
to represent the linen covering.
Bulkheads and a new cockpit floor were also fabricated at this time
to replace the overly thick kit floor and to cover the locating stubs
once the wing was installed. Dirty White was also used as a base for the
wood effect in these areas, with Tamiya Clear Yellow and Clear Orange
applied afterwards, but both seemed too bright to accuratly represent
wood. Since then I have read that adding Tamiya Smoke to either of these
will produce a nice result and I will try this in the future, but here
I applied some thin Transparent Earth Red oil paint and was satisfied
with the result.
 While
this was drying I returned to sprucing up the cockpit, adding throttle
quadrants from the Tom's Modelworks German Interior set, with a small
dollop of yellow oil paint added to simulate the handles and monofilament
for the throttle cables. Rudder pedals from the Tom's Modelworks set were
painted black and added, as well as new control sticks made from stretched
sprue with the tops flattened by touching them to the hot bulb of my desk
lamp. None of this is completely accurate, but adds some much needed detail
to this area.
 One
area which I was never able to resolve to my satisfation were the seats,
German aircraft of the time used several different types of seats, none
of them resembling the bulky items included in the kit. In the end I did
compromised on this and cleaned up the kit seats, raised them off of the
floor with some streched sprue rails and painted them leather with metal
framework. Another bit of speculation on my part were the seatbelts, added
again from the Tom's Modelworks set. Since this was an acrobatic aircraft
I opted for the four point restraints.
The kit supplies the instrument panels as decals, which from what I
can see in some of the close up photos I found online, seem to be accurate.
I painted the kit's instrument panel parts a dark grey and applied the
decals, then added bezels made using Philippe
Spriesterbach's technique
 To
secure these without obscuring the dials I coated the instrument panel
with Future and set the bezels in this. Once dry a dull coat was applied
to the panel and Future was then added to the inside of the bezels to
represent glass. I feel like this came out particularly well and really
adds to the look of the cockpit.
After detailing the cockpit I drilled a small hole for the exhaust
and epoxied a small tube in place for this, using a photo of a Klemm Kl
25 with the same engine for a placement guide.
 At
this point the fuselage halves were glued together and set aside. While
no engine is provided the cowling openings are large enough that something
should be done in this area. I painted the interior of the forward fuselage
and cowl in dark grey and used a pair of 1/35th scale binoculars for the
engine. These were painted black and wire was added to represent pushrods,
the whole assembly was then epoxied into place to ensure a permanent bond.
The completed cowling was then mated to the fuselage and a few swipes
with a sanding stick had me in good order to move on to the wings.
A feature of many of the competition lightplanes of the '30s were folding
wings, allowing the aircraft to fit through an opening of a specified
size as part of the competition guidelines. The Fieseler's wing folded
just past the wing root, where the leading edge begins to sweep back.
The wing was constructed around two wooden spars and was ply covered to
the rear spar on the top and to the front spar on the lower surfaces.
The remainder of the wing, including ailerons and flaps, was fabric covered.
 Having
a good plan that shows many of these details, the appropriate panel lines
were added and some of the fabric representation sanded away to correct
the surfaces of the wing. Once this was done it becomes clear that Huma
have the landing gear placement holes located on the folding portion of
the wings, these need to be relocated to their proper place on the wing
root just forward of the front spar. I initially drilled the new holes
incorrectly, visible in the construction photos, but I later redrilled
them in their proper locations before attaching the landing gear and painting
the model.
One item - a strip seen in photos on the leading edge just as it sweeps
back, possibly to adjust the wing incidence - was added by careful sanding.
 Careful
examination of all of the available photos showed five actuators for the
flaps and ailerons of each wing. Wanting to model the aircraft with the
control surfaces slightly displaced I drilled holes for the actuators
in their proper locations on the wing and control surfaces and began to
scribe the line between the two in the hopes of being able to simply bend
them to a displaced position. This was not to be however, as Huma's soft
white plastic is not very flexible and the result was that both flaps
and one aileron broke free. I re-attached these with pins made from stretched
sprue and displaced the surfaces afterwards by running a bit of glue into
the joint, softening the sprue pins to allow movement while bonding the
control surfaces back to the wing at the same time.
Once this little folly was corrected I could go back to addressing
the actuators, each made from two pieces of stretched sprue, paying careful
attention to their angles. The outboard aileron actuators were more traditional
hinges and were made from wire bent to the proper shape. One last bit
of detail added to the wings was a wingwalk added to the port wing root
from 3 lengths of, you guessed it, stretched sprue.
 Turning
back to the fuselage, I scribed into the cowl cheeks on both sides of
the cowling to add a bit of depth and added fuel and oil hatches in front
of the cockpits using plastic card sanded to a good thickness. A feature
of Fieseler's with the Hirth HM 60 R engine was a small raised square
cover on the upper port cowl which Huma give as a scribed box; since I
was modeling an aircraft with the HM 60 I filled this area, but those
modeling the kit aircraft should fabricate this raised cover. I also scribed
lines for an additional panel from the cowling to the front cockpit and
added rivit detail to all of the panels. A hole for the starter crank
was added in the upper port side of the cowling and a small luggage hatch
was scribed in behind the rear cockpit on the port side.
When researching a project I collect as many photos as I can find,
even of wrecked aircraft, as these sometimes contain details of areas
that are hidden in most photographs. One such photo of a Fieseler which
has nosed over shows stitching along the bottom of the fuselage where
the fabric meets. I used stitching from two sets of Tom's Modelworks German
Interior photo etch, attaching these by laying them into a pool of Future.
 Aside
from the landing gear location, the only other major problem found with
the Huma Fieseler is the placement of the horizontal tail surfaces, these
sitting too far back. To remedy this, the notch in the fuselage provided
for the tailplanes was extended forward roughly 5/16" until the leading
edges of the fin and horizontal tail surfaces corresponded. Since this
part is now being fitted to a wider part of the fuselage there are some
minor adjustments that will have to be made to allow a good fit. Once
installed the gap behind the tail surfaces must be filled.
To replicate the rudder hinges I made corresponding cuts in the fin
and rudder with a razor saw and added a bit of card. A larger bit was
added at the bottom and shaped to become the control horns and the rudder
was then attached.
Another detail gleaned from the photo of the nosed over Fieseler was
the location of the support struts for the horizontal tail surfaces; these
were added from stretched sprue.
At this point the wings were added, these fitting snugly, leaving only
the landing gear and fiddly bits left to attach.
Huma provides the oleo, spats and wheel as one piece, but the wheels
seemed a bit undersized to me so I replaced them with a wheel from the
spares box, cut in half and sanded down. This is a real nit pick and the
kit items will likely be fine for most modelers. The landing gear was
installed and the model was ready to be painted.
I deviated from the normal RLM 05 Cream, instead using Floquil Old
Silver to represent the doped fabric that covered the majority of the
airframe I was modeling. Citadel Mithril Silver acrylic was used on the
aluminum cowl and landing gear and the tail was masked off and painted
white.
 The
prop was wooden with a protective fabric covering and was painted Old
Silver at the same time as the airframe. The fabric covered portion was
masked and the other areas sprayed with a dark wood mixture. The real
propeller was attached by six bolts and the appropriate prop boss was
selected from the Tom's Modelworks set, painted and installed using Future
as a clear cement.
The wheels and tailskid were painted and installed and I was ready
to begin adding the decals.
Included in the reference material I found were photos of a sivler
doped Fieseler, D-2538, taken from almost every angle, including a photo
of the aircraft when it was involved in a competition of some type and
wore the number '32' on the tail. I have yet to discover which competition
this was, but the photo shows a Percival Gull Four wearing the number
'31' on it's tail directly behind the Fieseler and a DeHavilland DH 84
Dragon 2 behind the Percival. Since this Fieseler had not yet been painted
in RLM 05 and because the registration still contained numbers, I estimate
this photo to be from very early 1934. These are all of the clues I have,
if anyone knows which competition this could be, please let me know.
Even though we builders of 20s and 30s aircraft try to avoid the common
silver paint scheme, this silver Fieseler was unique and I had so much
good reference for this particular aircraft that I decided that this was
the one I was going to model.
 Using
the photos I was able to determine that the registration was carried on
the top and bottom of both wings and the fuselage sides, as well as the
number '32' on both sides of the tailfin. Once a font and size were determined
the decals were printed using Micro-Mark's laser printer decal sheets.
I will confess here that the font I used on these decals is not a perfect
match, but is very close. The decals came out well and went on without
the need for any decal solutions.
One marking which I omitted was the Fieseler logo, a stylized white
"F" in a medium blue circle, which should be on the fuselage
sides just under the forward cockpit. While not present on all Fieseler
aircraft, I do see it in my reference for this aircraft but am unable
to reproduce this in color at this time.
From the kit I used one of the two sets of data stencils provided.
According to German regulations these stencils, which included the name
and address of the owner of the aircraft, its weights and maximum occupancy,
and dates of last and next inspections should be located on the port fuselage
side below and just in front of the tailplane. I also used the kit's propeller
logos. The kit decals are very good, but should be set into a pool of
water or Future as they had a tendancy to stick where they landed otherwise.
The kits windscreens are fine, being commendably thin, but I lost no
time in misplacing one. Using the other I made new ones from clear plastic
sheet and added them. The rudder control cables and tail rigging were
next and the installation of the prop finished things off.
Conclusions:
 I
really enjoyed this kit, it is simple and toylike out of the box, but
the fit was good and only two real problems were found. A bit of extra
attention in the cockpit and to some of the missing external details really
improves the look of things.
Things I Missed:
One thing I noticed after a discussion on the topic with my fellow
modelers was that landing gear should be a bit compressed by the weight
of the aircraft. In looking more closely at my references I can see that
the nose of my model is a bit too high and my replacement wheels should
have been sanded down a bit more. Some small adjustments could have also
been made to the height of the wheel spats where they join the oleo.
Another point which should be addressed by any modeler who wishes to
build this kit is the top and bottom of the engine cowl; Huma give these
as raised areas like the cowl sides, but references show these to be flush
with the adjacent aluminum panel on the fuselage. The lower third of the
cowl opens like a jaw, with a piano hinge at the rear; this hinge would
be easy to add from a bit of stretched sprue. The upper panel line on
both sides of the cowling should, in fact, be piano hinges as well and
could be added if one was so inclined.
Were I to do it all over again, I would also add hinges to the elevators
in the same manner that I did to the rudder.
Undoubtedly, the longer I look at this model the more things I will
see, but these are the points I have noticed thus far. I feel that should
anyone use my model as reference it is important to point out areas that
can be improved upon.
I would like to thank all of my friends on the Wings of Peace list
for their encouragment, as well as Roger Holden specifically for his help.
A big 'thank you' goes to local modeling chum Lee Kolosna for the use
of his Floquil Old Silver and for printing the decals for me.
|
|
