Gwfm d vii

[Maxim08]

Some of the members at the Great War Flying Museum have been pressing for updates on the progress of our rebuild of Whiskey Whiskey India, the groups Fokker D VII replica.
While there was a thread started last spring by Great War Pilot, it is now closed so a new thread begins.

A re-cap.

WWI was one of the earliest reproductions of a Fokker D7. First flown in 1977, it was the result of several years hard work by a dedicated group know as the Ontario Aviation Historical Society operating as The Great War Flying Museum.

Currently there is quite a bit of information available to a diligent researcher allowing for a highly accurate embodiment of Fokker's first war masterpiece. In 1978, with most communication being via snail-mail, research was protracted. At the time it was determined that the most available plans to build from would be those created by Rousseau Aviation for the aircraft used in 'The Blue Max'. As far as we can determine, C-GWWI is the only flying replica built from the Rousseau drawings besides the aircraft used for the film.

Since 1978 WWI has flown every year accumulating approximately 900 hours of time almost all of it at airshows. In its history are appearances on the big screen ('The Aviator', major scene being when a D7 is hand propped), numerous History Channel programs and most recently, was the apparent inspiration on an episode of 'Dogfights' where a staffel of D7s all sported the GWFM style of port side exhaust!

WWI first wore the colours of Goering's all white aircraft. Subsequently it was painted to represent Berthold's red and blue aircraft.

The engine is powered by a Ranger L-440-C5, a 200hp version, which was inverted to place the engine thrustline near to where the originals was. This is a deviation from the Rousseau plans which detail the engine installation for a dehavilland Gypsy Queen engine in its original configuration with clyinders facing downward.

Here are two images of the aircraft in June, 2007.





During its airshow life WWI experienced one major incident, a mid-air collision, which damaged both the elevator and starboard aileron. The pilot, an Air Canada captain, performed a great job in getting the aircraft back on the ground in one piece. The triplane that struck the D7 was not as lucky and ended up on its back in a field minus the top wing. (The pilot walked away so I guess it qualified as a good landing.)

The next incident and the one leading to this thread was not as lucky.
In 2007 at Geneseo, NY, WWI lost power shortly after take off. Ahead of the pilot was a river with trees on both banks. Aiming for the only treetop gap, the aircraft snagged a high branch with the starboard wing and went straight down from about 60 feet.



He too walked away combining equal parts of stick & rudder work with luck.

The end result though was a heavily damaged aircraft requiring a comprehensive rebuild.

To be continued...

John

[Von Writter]

Hey John, can you remember what size of prop WWI had on it at the time of the photos above?

[Maxim08]

The kind staff at Geneseo allowed us to keep WW1 in their hangars over the winter of 07-08. The airplane was recovered in 08 and brought back to our home field in Brampton, Ontario.

The craft was stripped into major components and the damaged airframe sent to one of our members who effected the main structural repairs to the fuselage. This involved nearly everything forward of the firewall including the starboard side cabanes.

Work was put aside for the summer airshow season and only really started up in October of this year. Since I am building my own D7, I was asked to co-ordinate the repairs and modifications to WW1. My new status as 'retired' probably influenced this decision as well.

The first task for me was to compile a schedule of repairs. This indicates what has to be done, who will perform the work, who will check the work and an estimate of hours to complete. We quickly came up with about 700 hours of work to be done. Not everything is strictly repairing but incorporates updates and modifications to the original aircraft.

We have defined some primary guiding principals for this project. Safety first; Improve the pilot experience; Make it closer to the plans; Improve the flight characteristics.

A survey of the complete stripped down airplane shows that there were many deviations from the original plans. The reasoning for many of these changes has been lost over 3 decades and there are challenges inherent in changing something that has come to be accepted as the norm. Many things will not be changed because we would rapidly approach the stage of building a completely new aircraft. Balance is the key in this project using the original Rousseau drawings as the benchmark/touchstone. It may not be 'perfect' D7 building but the aircraft has flown successfully for 30 years and I won't argue with success.

Some examples:

The upper wing.



The wing is a massive structure almost 30 feet long with a chord of about 5 feet. Early reports (McCook Field) indicate that the wing should weight in at 150 lbs. Our wing weighs 194lbs with ailerons. The ailerons are overweight at 10 lbs each leaving a wing of 174 lbs with hardware.

Two reasons for this are the solid sheeting of the leading edge, as opposed to the 'saw tooth' pattern of the original and a scalloped trailing edge of wood instead of a simple 1mm wire.



To replace a 1mm wire and the rear lateral rib stiffener, this wing has a trailing edge made of a continuous wedge of spruce skinned top and bottom with plywood. While none of these components weigh much on their own, together we end up with 24 extra pounds. There is little that we can do without building a new wing so the top wing will remain as it is. The ailerons which have been built with heavier tubing than necessary are a running improvement that we can make in the future.

Second example, the seat.

The original seat is shown below on the left. It is made from 3/4" and 1/2" plywood. The substitution of a fokker design seat made from 1mm aluminium saves 6lbs. It is also 4" narrower than the wood seat! 6 pilots familiar with flying this aircraft have all commented on the comfort and fit of the new seat.



Seat frame. Note location of vertical seat brace brackets. These would normally be at the corner juncture of the seat frame. I decided that this was a case of modify, not replace.



Thre are many other similar examples within this aircraft and one of our teams objectives is to replace unnecessary 're-engineering' with oringial design components. If we can shave a few pounds here and there, we will end up with a lighter aircraft and follow our primary guiding principals defined above.

TBC....
John

[Maxim08]

Troy, writing and not reading!!
The D7 has always used an 86R61 which is really a Cornell (pt-19/26) prop.
Personally I believe that it is the wrong prop for a Ranger in a first war replica and I have one of the St Croix 94" props for my own Ranger installation.
We are planning on acquiring one of Chad's props for WWI.
Regards,
John

[Maxim08]

Our Objective

Every project needs a goal and one of the exciting parts of this project is the anticipation we all have for the new colour scheme.

When C-GWWI was last painted there was no ready source for lozenge fabric. That is one of the practical considerations behind the previous colour schemes. The Berthold colouring only had day lozenge on the lower surfaces of the wings. To create this, the museum called upon its most valuable resource, enthusiastic volunteers, to hand paint the finish. This was accomplished by projecting a drawing of the lozenge pattern with an overhead projector (remember those?) and tracing the outlines. Each area was then handpainted with a brush. When you actually stand next to a thrity foot piece of Ceconite with all those little areas, you appreciate big solid coloured paint schemes.

As Great War Pilot noted last April, the museum decided to go forwards with a paint scheme that is almost all 4 colour lozenge. To this end fabric was purchased from Ross Walton at Vintage Aero Fabrics and is currently in store.

Here is what it will look like.



'RK' has specific Canadian significance, was a frontline aircraft and is a visibly dramatic departure from most German aircraft on the airshow circuit. Using this material and the doping required will actually decrease the weight of the airframe, a big plus.

Regards,
John

[Der Grüne Flieger]

Originally Posted by Maxim08

Troy, writing and not reading!!
The D7 has always used an 86R61 which is really a Cornell (pt-19/26) prop.
Personally I believe that it is the wrong prop for a Ranger in a first war replica and I have one of the St Croix 94" props for my own Ranger installation.
We are planning on acquiring one of Chad's props for WWI.
Regards,
John

John,

This summer Vet, Jeff and I looked at a DVa project with an old Ranger engine and a St. Croix prop. Maybe you could score the prop for your project? PM me if you are interested and I'll get you his info. FYI, Vet didn't like a small closed knot that he saw in the prop.

Phil

[SCMc]

Hi John,

I am glad to here that you are making progress. What is the target date for completion?

What is the status of your own D.VII, and what are your plans for it?

Steve

[greatwarpilot]

Maxim08,

Thanks for keeping the rest of the 'drome updated on the rebuild of C-GWWI.

For those of you who don't frequent the Art section of this forum too frequently, you may be surprised to learn that Fok. D.VII (Alb.) 5924/18 (not 5324!) has also made an appearance in one of Russell Smith's latest works in progress.

Another new study - Fokker DVII

That thread contains some recently uncovered details about the the uniquely Canadian history of the original 'RK', and why it was selected by the GWFM as the new identity for C-GWII.

Cheers,

['14-'18aviationcollector]

Hi,

Thank you very much for the great information! What is the story with the Sopwith 1 & 1/2 strutter in the background? It looks very authentic, at least from what I can see.

Cheers,

David.

[greatwarpilot]

David,

Without letting this thread get too off topic, I'll give you a quick backgrounder on the GWFM's replica Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter.

As with most of the GWFM's aircraft, it is a compromise between a relatively original exterior appearance and less authentic interior structure/powerplant.

The 'Strutter' has wooden wings that are essentially built to original plans. These are attached to a steel tube fuselage and the combination is powered by the tank version of the 220hp Continental.

It was acquired by the museum as an unfinished project in 2001 and during 2004 it was completed and painted to represent Strutter serial 9739 as flown by of F/S/L Ronald F. Redpath of No. 3 Wing RNAS.

Cheers,