Finally - the one plane from WWI anyone's heard of

This is Manfred von Richthofen's famous all red Fokker Triplane. 'Iconic' as they say. This aircraft is forever associated with von Richthofen, in turn famous as the top ace of the Great War 1914-18. It was the plane he was killed in early in 1918, and he was so famous that the souvenir hunters were already stripping his plane of fabric and bits while he lay there dying. It's been famous ever since, with secondary fame accorded to the British Sopwith Camel which was chasing him in his last battle; and those two types were pushed further into popular culture by the Charlie Brown cartoon series, with the story of Snoopy and the Red Baron. 

Sometimes myth overpowers historical facts. The plane's fame comes down to the fact that it was his last machine. His overall official score was 80, probably quite accurate as such things go (in general, official kill stats from WWI are unreliable), because Richthofen was an obsessive in this area - he had an individual cup made for each plane downed. Assessing the scores of all the other top pilots is a near hopeless task: many, like No.2 in the list, René Fonck, 71 kills, were 'lone wolves' and would sometimes have lacked the necessary witness to their victories. On the other hand, such pilots might also be creative in their reports. Furthermore, most of the combat in the air took place over the German lines, and many accomplishments by British and French (and Canadian and US etc) pilots will have remained unknown.

The main point of myth here is that the Red Baron only scored twice in this aircraft. He flew other Triplanes as well, but even with all of them his overall score on the type was only 13. His most successful planes were Albatros D.IIIs, followed by Albatros D.Vs. He wasn't the most successful Fokker Triplane pilot - that was Carl Josef Jacobs, in his striking looking black machine - and the Fokker Dr.I wasn't even the most impactful triplane. That was the Sopwith Triplane, whose dramatic success in only a short operational career inspired the whole Triplane Craze which the Germans went through (the Fokker type was the only German design to achieve any success at all).

But no one cares about all that. 

When somebody asked me to make them a model of a Great War plane, this is the one they wanted. Along with a Sopwith Camel to make a pair of them - that'll follow later (crossed fingers!).

Modelers love the red Fokker Triplane. The Dreidekker. Modelers who never make any other plane from WWI have probably made a model of this plane. I never had, though I did once make a 1:72 example of the Triplane flown by Richthofen's brother Lothar, who was an ace in his own right. He naturally didn't have any red on his plane, but a lot of yellow. Just to be different.

This kit is from Eduard's 1:48 range. A long established Czech company, they've done a lot to support WWI modelling in the last few years, and their kits in this scale are high quality. Which means not only good accuracy and detail, but models which go together without problems. My experience with this kit was very good on both fronts. The designers had put a lot of thought into the build; a nice little example was the way the oil and fuel caps (the brass items you can just see on the top decking behind the nose) are inserted from below. There's a sheet of photo etch, which can be a bit intimidating for some, but there was often a choice between an etched or plastic alternative.

The cockpit area is quite busy, with pleasing detail; the picture shows a stage part way through. After researching online I added some side rigging, and rudder cables, both jobs fairly straightforward to do, and yes, you can just about see them when it's all sealed up.

In case you're wondering about the pink sides, I was following instructions there (incorrectly for the front floor section, that should have been metal, but you can't see it). The advice was to do with how in the real plane, the red dope leached through the fabric, hence it looking pink.. As for the wood sections, I did use the decals provided, though I prefer painting a wood effect these days. I simply wanted to see how they turned out. It's acceptable.

I also chose to swap the kit's guns for two of Gaspatch's beautiful products. The kit's guns were either solid plastic, or you built the cooling jacket by rolling up photo etch. The thing is, the type of guns favoured by the Germans in fighters were usually very visible, and you could see light through the slots in the cooling jackets; and you can also in Gaspatch's excellent 3D printed guns. Very good, but mounting them was tricky. It may not be obvious from the picture, but the cockpit structure is so scale accurate that you end up with something rather flimsy which the guns are supposed to be fixed on top of. And if the structure is slightly out of line, as mine was, it gets a little bit stressful. Oh well, it turned out okay in the end.

Any other difficulty? Not really, except for attaching the undercarriage. It's quite delicate at this scale, and took care, especially since the panel under the nose was rendered with a sheet of photo etch, which complicated the rigging process. There's very little rigging to do on any of the later Fokker types, but what there is, you still want to look good. I used the anchor-and-monofilament technique in this build, I like the result although the size of the 'anchors' in 1:48 entailed some torturous try and try again before successfully threading the line each time. The control lines for the ailerons, elevators and rudder were naturally very short and I used bits of ceramic wire.

What else... Really pleased with the laminated painting effect on the propeller I managed to achieve this time!

All in all, a very nice kit.