At the Old Kingsbury Aerodrome we use a combination of copies of original factory drawings (if available) *and Jim Kiger's 1/5 scale Replicraft plans. *The plans are 1/5th scale as drawn but the dimensions shown on the plan are full scale *(except for the Hanriot HD-1.....I think). *The aircraft are all full scale. *The SE5a is to be powered by an original Hispano-Suiza (180 hp....I think) while the D.VII is to be powered by a Ranger. *The Ranger is aircooled but we are reversing the facings of the cylinders so that the exhaust is on the left and the intake on the right. *In order to do this we are having a special cam made that will allow for this and shift the torque peak to a lower rpm to hopefully give the engine more early "Mercedes-like" characteristics so we can use a prop more in scale with the originals. *The Ranger tops out in the 3000 rpm range while the old Mercedes was in the 1700-1800 range...it just had a hell of a lot torque at those low rpms. * We had considered using a Gypsy Queen engine but decided not to. *We have several Rangers on hand but would have to buy the GQ engine. *The wings have the Gottingen (sp?) airfoil and it is more than twice as thick as the SE5a wing. *It had to be to accomodate those big box spars. *Hopefully the D.VII will be flying by May, 2002. *You can access the Replicraft website at:
http://home.pacbell.net/fraze/replicraft.html