Roden 1/48 Fokker D.VII OAW (mid) By Claudio Kalicinski

History

The Fokker D.VII was clearly the best fighter of the Great War, this achievement was confirmed in the Versailles Treaty; as being the only plane that was specifically included on it.

The Fokker D.VII was the winner of the Fighter Competition held at Johannistal in January 1918,
but Fokker did not have sufficient plant capacity to meet the demand; so German authorities decided that the aircraft would be produced by Albatros under license. Because of that, Albatros Flugzeugwerke stopped the production of obsolete Albatros D.Va and started the license production of D.VII on its plants. Apart from it main factory, based in Johanisthal, Albatros had a factory on Schneidemuhl (Ostdeutschen Albatros Werken, OAW), this one was bigger and could build more aircraft than the other two plants combined.

First batches of Albatros-built D.VII’s were absolutely similar to early-built by the Fokker Company, but after some crashes related with in-flight explosion of the ammunition (motived by the poor ventilation of the engine), the Albatros Company decided to modify the system of ventilation, adding new louvers to the side’s panels. This was the main external difference between early, mid and late production batches of OAW machines. With the time, OAW added variations in access doors in the cowling and more louvers to the engine panels. OAW types were the fastest of the various versions of D.VII built.

The Kit

The Fokker D.VII OAW (mid) is Roden’s latest release, in the Fokker D.VII family. The sprues are the same as Roden’s earlier versions with the exception of sprue G. It contains the necessary radiator, side’s panels and engine’s covers that were unique to this version. But be aware that the louver positions varied from aircraft to aircraft so the modeler should study their subject carefully.

The overall level of detail of the kit is very high. The kit comes with two types of engines, one Mercedes and a BMW, which can be displayed with the covers off.

Three different types of propellers are supplied as well as three types of wheel’s covers with different valve holes.

The wings are superb and exhibit a fine rendition of the ribs and forward plywood sheathing. They come as separate upper and lower halves with separate ailerons. These feature slots allow the secure attachment of the control horns.

The cockpit is nicely detailed. Roden provides the control column, (with separate throttle levers), instrument panel (Fokker layout), compass, tachometer, fuel pressure pump, floor, seat, fuel tank, rudder bar and rear fabric panel. Also there is a good representation of the tubular structure on the inner section of the fuselage.

The machine guns look as good as ever, but I want to make a suggestion to Roden: Many modelers will be happy if these kits include a small etched set (as seeing in Sopwith Strutter kits) with the Spandau guns jackets, control horns and seatbelts.

Markings

Markings are provided for six examples:

1. Ltn. Hans Jungwirth, Jasta 78b, Summer-Autumn 1918
2. Ltn. Walter Blume, Jasta 9, August 1918
3. Ltn. Friedrich Stoer, Jasta 35b, August 1918
4. Ltn. Karl Ritscherle, Jasta 60, October 1918
5. Ltn. Ulrich Neckel, Jasta 6, September-October 1918
6. Ltn. Rudolf Stark, Jasta 35b, August 1918

These are supplied in six sheets of decal. One is dedicated to the National markings and stencil data and the others are for the rib tapes and lozenge. The carrier film is nice and thin but sadly the white is slightly out of register on the National markings sheet.

Conclusion

I think Roden’s Fokker D.VII family has the best relation cost/detail of the market. My only complaint is about the decal register, maybe Roden should start separating the markings into more than one decal.

Thanks to Roden and Matt Bittner for supplying the kit for review.