Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.8

摘要

I found the Royal Aircraft Factory's F.E.8 in Windsock Datafile #74 from Albatross Publications 10 Long View, Chiltern Park Estate, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, HP4 1BY, Great Britain. It contains excellent 3-views, photos, stories, and color drawings. I simply enlarged the 3-views and built directly on them. When I was done, my friend Vic Bock, who is a draftsman and modeler, drew up proper plans, improving on some of my construction methods. This design, I felt, was adaptable to modeling because of the 7.9 aspect ratio, the generous dihedral, and the long flat center section in the wings (making construction easier). The RAF F.E.8 was the last to fly in France during WW I. 230 planes were built. Although some thought that this was a copy of the DeHavilland DH-2, the RAF's F.E.8 actually preceded it. The prototype was delivered with the gun in the nose, connected to a gun sight ahead of the windshield. I thought this concept was ahead of its time. However, the pilots had problems with accessibility to the gun for changing ammunition cassettes, so later models had the gun on the top of the nose and some even used gun mounts from the DH-2. I decided to follow the original nose configuration since it is unusual for a WW I plane.