Phönix D.IIa - GPM 277 (1/33)

My next build will be GPM's most recent WWI subject - the Phönix D.IIa. The kit is in the same mould of previous GPM WWI models - Nice colours, excellent instructions and some design choices that I find somewhat dubious but, hopefully, manageable
Well, let's start with the usual pictures of the kit...

Thank you for the support, frettchen
As the wing formers look very complicated to cut, I bought the laser cut parts from GPM. Some of them are used in the first assembly - the cockpit.

@ Royaloakmin - well, I am a good client from several publishers The stock of models to build keeps growing but the good thing is to have a lot to choose from

The cockpit gave no problems. The cockpit cover was a bit trickier because the only places to put glue are the front and back formers. There is nothing in between. Fortunately, the dark strips (part 17) help to hide the misery...

The fuselage tail is well drawn. The solution to fix the rear landing gear is simple and effective.
There will be a bit of wire to support the horizontal tail. The hole for the wire is well marked on the fuselage parts but not on the laser cut structure. However, I noticed that the card is quite easy to make a hole in...

The kit proposes to put a bit of wire inside all four legs of the landing gear. I decided to use a single, U-shaped, wire for the front two legs, in order to eliminate some degrees of freedom. Hopefully, the assembly will be sturdier. For the tyres, I used the usual rolled paper strips.

@ Michael - thanks
@ Zweispeer - please take a look here: [Fertig] BAC Lightning - Fly Model (1:33)
It is where I started using rolled paper strips for the tyres. Please feel free to ask for details, if you want
@ Norm - well, well, it would be a good companion to your Knoller =)

The tail assembly is just a piece of cake. I used slim paper strips for the rudder actuator, instead of thread. It comes out straight more easily...

Hello Stephan, greetings from Portugal
@ Tallyho - Well, my German has improved from a big bold zero to a slightly slimmer and smaller zero. Anyway, I got most of the history and let me thank you for taking your time to put it here. Regarding the Hiero engine, there it is I'll deal with the exhausts latter on, after gluing the engine to the fuselage.

@ Tallyho - Oh dear! Thanks a lot for taking your time for translation
The wing structure is interesting but Im not completely happy because, spanwise, it is not very stiff. It fits very, very tightly inside the skin, too. I had to remove a bit, in order to put it all inside the skin. Another not very good solution is the large cut on the upper surface, near the wingtip. It allows the paper to be curved to simulate double curvature but wouldnt it be possible to design the parts with cuts exactly along the structure lines? That way, the cuts would be reasonably hidden. This is definitely not the case here :(. Mr GPM, please think about it for your next projects

@ Eric - You got exactly to my point! It looks much better this way, doesnt it? By the way, I think that this method also models better the real shape of the wing tip because the fabric, being in tension, tends to get straight between wing formers. Near the leading edge, the more marked streamwise curvature adds a nice 3D effect to the fabric shape but I guess that it can only be reasonably modelled by deforming the paper
Your Morane looks great I particularly like the rigging and the airscrew but the whole model is a beauty. I enclose a couple of pictures of your Moranes German brother, the Pfalz E.I. It is a scratchbuild, too

You are surely right about scanning, correcting and printing again, Eric. The fact is that I am all too lazy to modify kits to that extent However, I often add (hidden) parts to ease assembly. That was the case in the nose and the engine cowling. There was virtually no place to put glue on
The laminated airscrew is an interesting idea but, again, the thick paper doesn't help. Each slice has front and back and gets very thick. I'd very much prefer to have single slices (not arranged in pairs) to get a smoother finish. The drawback to have to paint the rear face would not be a real problem as it is already necessary to paint the many edges...

To assemble the upper wing in the correct position, GPM provides card templates that are very useful. For the struts, I put a bit of wire inside every one. The wire tips enter small holes on the connection points.
The last picture shows the radiator and the airspeed indicator. I guess this one could only be used by pilots with above average eyesight!...

@ frettchen - I should be able to post pictures of the completed model tomorrow or Friday...

@ Sergey - To paint the edges, I always use pens. Usually ABT dual brush pens because they have a huge set of colours. They are quite expensive but, to paint the edges and not a lot more, they last for a long time :). It is often adequate to paint with a neutral grey, instead of a seemingly more appropriate colour. A bright colour will tend to pop up the edge, instead of concealing it

@ Norm - I did press a bit on the paper, particularly close to the leading edge. It is just noticeable there. Frankly, I was a bit afraid of pressing the paper more firmly as there could be an accident. You managed to do a lot more on the Knoller and it surely looks more realistic. Answers paper is less thick than GPMs and that may help but I guess you used other tricks a lot of white glue to soften the paper, maybe? This is something I have to try on another model, with spare paper.
Anyway, it is all too easy to overdo the effect. It is usually significant near the leading edge, where the streamwise curvature is greater. The leading edge itself was often reinforced with a wood part that locally eliminates the effect.
On another note, the resulting wing structure on the model is very unsound! Think of a main spar cut down to pieces, hardly glued together, and fixed to a wrinkled upper skin. I bet that, with time, the whole thing will tend to deform. I enclose a picture of a model built in 1997. The wing structure is made of rather thin paper boxes, glued to the skin, with just a bit of thick wire in the middle, to fix the dihedral. The sewing thread rigging has never been adjusted since then and I see no sign of it getting loose.
That said, this problem should not appear in your Knoller because the triangular structure between the wings is made of struts that can work both in tension and compression. Together with the wings, the struts form a very stiff beam. The model structure works the same way. Cable stabilized structures in the real world, when modelled, tend to have a completely different behaviour. The cables are just for show and the beam is inside each wing. Much slender and with a very tiny fraction of the stiffness

@ Norm - I looked again, more carefully, to your construction pictures and yes, I have no doubt that 'your' wings are solid You didn't use the parts provided in the kit and may well have been a very good choice! Just another question - did you leave a place on main card part for a bit of wire? I guess that the two half wings are linked that way.
The Knoller wing structure is not unlike the lower wing / floaters structure on the Brandenburg W12. With this solution, there is no need for wing bracing! I very much like Brandenburg floatplanes. Maybe sometime a kit pops up of the W-29. I'd be a ready buyer, if the kit is good...

Well, the model is complete Let's go to the pictures...

Walking around, at ground level...

... and the last ones.

Thank you all for the comments
@ Zaphod - that's what I call a coincidence! Do you know if the kit will be available at moduni, or GPM? I'm pretty interested =)
@ Norm - quite amazing I'd never think of doing it that way! Well, the lower wingspan of the Knoller is very small but, nevertheless...