WOW149 Fokker Triplane Red

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SKU: 12733 Category:
Description

Description

The Fokker Dr.1 was built by Fokker- Flugzeuwerke and entered service in the spring of 1918. It was inspired by Anthony Fokker viewing a captured Sopwith Triplane in April 1917. Upon his return to the Schwerin factory Fokker instructed Reinhold Platz to design a German version of the Triplane. Platz responded with an initial design called the V.4 which was deemed initially unsuitable but from this design the V.5 was developed. The first 2 of 3 initial prototypes were sent to Belgium to be combat evaluated, with Richoften scoring 2 victories in one of these before Kurt Wolff took over the evaluation process. Wolff was killed whilst flying his on 15th September with Werner Voss also killed a few days later flying his Triplane prototype. However Richoften declared the Fokker Triplane superior to the British variant and it was put into immediate production. The Dr.1 was popular with its pilots but it was prone to tipping over whilst landing, had a cramped cockpit and was slower than some Allied aircraft. The top wing also had a tendency to shed itself at high speeds, this was later found out to be due to poor materials and workmanship, it was also found that the upper wing carried a higher lift coefficient than the lower wing, at high speeds, this could be as much as 2.5 times the lower wing. Because of these failures only 320 Triplane were built before being replaced by the Fokker D. V11, arguably one of the best fighters of WW1.  The pilot climbing the ladder is also included free with this model please note.