Eduard 1/48th Limited Edition Pfalz D.IIIa By Tom Solinski

History

The Pfalz Company (pronounced FAHLTS) was founded in 1913 by three Everbusch brothers. They partnered with Herr Otto of Otto biplane fame, and became an aircraft manufacturer by producing licensed copies of other people's airplanes, specifically the Otto biplane and Morane monoplanes. In the latter case, they built both parasols and midwing scouts. They continued to produce these monoplanes as Pfalz A-and E-type aircraft, mostly for Bavarian squadrons through the first years of the war. Then in a desire to produce a more effective combat aircraft they began building Roland, D-I, D-II and D-III aircraft, again under license. Finally, in the summer of 1917, Pfalz entered the forefront of German combat units with their own designed D-III.

Expanding on what they had learned from building Roland fighters; their design improved the manufacturing and aerodynamics to produce an acceptable fighter. However, like all new designs it had features that didn't work out. In this case, in an effort to aid aerodynamics, the twin machine guns were buried in the fuselage with only the barrels protruding on either side of the engines' cylinders. Naturally, guns being guns, this location did not allow the pilot to clear a jam, and it added to the time needed for ground crews to remove and replace them for servicing. This led to field mods and a factory mod late in the D-III production that mounted the guns in a more conventional manner on the outside of the fuselage.

For the D-IIIa, Pfalz incorporated four principle changes in the production line. They supposedly switched to the 180 Hp engine, moved the guns to the outside of the fuselage, enlarged the horizontal stabilizer, and changed the shape of the lower wing tips. There are the four key indicators, which distinguish (sort of) the D-III from the D-IIIa, well, maybe.

1. In the case of the D-III, the horizontal stabilizer is rectangular with a straight leading edge, whereas on the D-IIIa, it is "D" shaped with a curved leading edge. THAT is the one CLEAR identifier.

2. For the machine guns on the D-III, they should be buried under the fuselage skin and on the D-IIIa, they should be above the fuselage out in the open, but some of the D-IIIs had them here too.

3. The lower wing tips on the D-III are raked back in a triangular point similar to the upper wings, whereas on the D-IIIa they are supposed to be rounded. In my 1:1 experience, this is usually done to minimize damage in the event of a ground loop. But some D-IIIa's retained or were back-fitted with the pointy tipped lower wings of the earlier D-III.

4. Lastly, the D-III had a 160 HP engine and the D-IIIa supposedly had a 180HP engine, unless it had a 160HP engine.

Sadly, all this confusion came from my recent research into, what I used to think as reliable, data sources. Last thought to remember is that the D-IIIs served from 1917 until early 1918. The D-IIIa came into front line service in October or November 1917, and stayed in service until replaced by the Fokker D-VII and Pfalz D-XII in August 1918. They continued to serve as fighter trainers through the end of the Great War.

The Kit

I have this funny feeling I've written something very similar to this before.

My last in box review for IM was of the Roden Fokker D-VII Alb, which is one of a series of Roden kits, which replaced the only Fokker D-VII kit around for decades, the Aurora Fokker D-VII. Now we're going to look at a series of Eduard kits, which replace the only kit around for decades, the Aurora Pfalz D-III.

For decades, modelers who like 1/48 scale had to be content to build one kit of the Pfalz D-III, that kit came from the 1950's vintage molds by Aurora. That model was surprisingly very accurate with respect to scale, but it has problems of its age, i.e. raised lettering and decal locators, little detail. The Aurora kit is of a late model D-III. It has the small square horizontal stabilizer of the first version and the guns mounted on top of the fuselage of the later version. (Maybe this was just "cooler" for the [us] boys of the time to see the guns!) And much like the Aurora Fokker D-VII, the Aurora Pfalz D-III has been re-popped by Merit, K&B, and with some slight modification Glencoe.

The subject of this review is the new Eduard "LIMITED EDITION" Pfalz D-IIIa kit number 1105 with a catalog list price of $39.95 US. This is Eduard's fourth in a series of Pfalz D-IIIa aircraft. The other three are the basic Pfalz D-IIIa kit number 8044, a 1/48 rendition of the late production Pfalz D-IIIa. Pfalz D-IIIa kit number 8045, a "Profipack" version of the same kit, adding some PE and different decals, and Pfalz D-IIIa kit number 8046, an early production variant. Sorry but I don't have a copy of the last kit to show you.

As with the other D-IIIas in the Eduard line of this series of airplanes, the kit comes with the same two "common" Pfalz D-IIIa sprues. The sprues contain both the pointed and round tipped lower wings of the different production versions.

The limited kit features items that are unique to this line. There is almost three times as much PE in this kit and that is now stainless steel, in lieu of brass, that comes in the Profipack.
In addition to the large quantity of PE, you also get a set of Eduard's Express Mask precut masking tape. (That's the OD colored square in the above to the right.)

Eduard dresses up the LIMITED kit with decal options for four aircraft as opposed to the 2 options found in the earlier kits. It's odd, but they only show three of the options on the outside of the box. But at least one the four choices complement existing options found in the earlier kits. In the new kit, an orange diamond marked airplane #5947/17, of Jasta 30 complements a Jasta 30 orange diamond aircraft; #4203/17 found in kit #8044 and the Jasta 30 aircraft of Hands Bethge found in kit #8045. There is also a blue and red aircraft of Jasta 18 of Ltn. Von Buttlar that complements the same colored plane of Hptm. Bertold also in kit #8045.

In all the finish options cover all the bases with respect to Pfalz finishes. You get all silver gray, silver gray with lozenge wings, and two options of lots of loud colors. Eduard attempts to save the lozenge decal novice a little grief by printing their lozenge in sheets shaped to fit the corresponding part. No need to cut match and fit square bolts, much like the 1:1 fabric as found in other manufacturers and after market decal sets. However, some folks may consider the lozenge in this kit to be a little too bright. And then they provide rib stitching that wraps around the leading edge for a neat finish.

And finally the instructions and paint and marking guide are in full color. With 12 pages on folded A-4 format full of the necessary detail to install all of the fine PE. One page with a rigging diagram and a final page showing lozenge decal placement.

I'm looking forward to assembling this kit so you can see the results as it comes out of the box.
IM thanks Eduard for this review kit, straight from the factory.