How To Kill A Perfectly Good Fokker

[Ross_Moorhouse]

Landing with floats on grass even with the bottoms oiled would call for much skill?

[WinterHawke]

Originally Posted by Ross_Moorhouse

Landing with floats on grass even with the bottoms oiled would call for much skill?

Good day, Ross,

The Sopwith has a few dozen flights on it, and except for two occasions where it flew (quite nicely) off of the water, all flights have been started off of a wheeled dolly for take-off (the new dolly works much better than the 2003 vintage one!), and landings are on the grass.

It does take a bit of finesse to get it down okay, but except for a couple of nose-overs, most landings have gone just fine. It doesn't take at all kindly, however, to engine out affairs - very tough to judge the speed. When we've had problems, they've been engine off affairs.

Without the PAM on the floats, the landing "roll-out" is very abrupt , with the PAM it slides along pretty nice.

Stephen is bringing her to this year's DPR, and hopefully all there will get to see her fly properly - we had nothing but engine troubles two years ago, before the one float affair on Sunday!

[Lucky Dog]

Bummer! But what a great story and pics. Good to keep a sense of humor when such tragedies occur.

Del, How's that DVIII repair coming?

[deljon]

Hi Mike,
Still trying to get the green figured out. In any case it will be at Dayton.

Del

[stefanP]

I feel your pain all the way over here.

stefanP P.S. God Speed on the next Triplane

[deljon]

Thanks Stefan, I will have another, they're toooo much fun not to have one in the hanger.

Del

[Yeoman]

Well at least there will be no arguments about who brought that particular triplane down

It did look nice though. Shame!

[Prop Nut]

Was that the DRI that you had sitting in front of your pavillion in Dayton? Looked well on its way to recovery.

[WinterHawke]

The framed-up Triplane we had at Dayton is my Balsa USA effort - some changes for a more scale appearance (tail, etc.). Very nearly ready to start the final work - cockpit, radio, covering et. al.

I walked Del down to the BUSA booth while we were there this weekend and forced one of their Dr.1 kits into his hands - I couldn't buy him the labor it's going to take to get back into the air, but I could at least supply him with the basic building materials needed

I know he's keen on getting a tripe back into the air, and already has the Glenn Torrance kit, but I figured he should take his time enjoying that build, and not feel he had to rush to get airborne again. The BUSA bird should be a much quicker build, and maybe, just maybe, not as vulnerable around Killer Moths!

Just got back in town from the DPR 2005, and am sorting through my meager supply of pictures and such (and trying to find basic things like my cell phone and such!). Hope to have some updates up on the Events Pages early this week on the Rendezvous - it was great!!!

'til later,

Lee

[Jasta 5 Von Muller]

Ouch and that scale Fokker looked great with the pilot in fron tof it and what not!!!!!