Fokker Spinne (Spin, Spider)

[IvotB]

Found about 56 pictures. These are medium resolution. If needed I have high res originals.







































































































These are my own attempts of building a 1:72 Spin.





The fuselage goes together without any real problems. The wings however are a disaster. The PE wings do not fit on the PE girders. This is a design fault and was unneccessary. You have to do quite a lot of work to get it right.


The fitting of the wings to the fuselage is easy. also in 1:32 as the two wing girders are connected to the bottom frame of the fuselage.

regards,
Ivo

[ALBATROS1234]

best spinne shots ive seen thanks friend.

[Rob Hart]

Great photos, but talk about a rudimentary flying machine!

[David]

Hi Ivo,

These photos of the Spin (I thought in German it was spelt Spinne) are absolutely magnificent!  Thank you very much for posting them!

Is it an original aeroplane?  It looks old, and it looks as though it is original to me.  Where is it displayed?  Do you know if there are drawings available for it?  WW1 aeroplanes are difficult enough to obtain drawings of.  This one, which is presumably pre WW1, or very early WW1 at the latest would be almost impossible to obtain drawings for, I would imagine.  I am not particularly familiar with the Argus engine, but I can see what appears to be an Argus badge on the front of the engine.

Regards,

David.

[miecio52]

 :)Thank you for the pictures, I'm going to make this model of Historic Wings 1/72 and then from the ground up 1/32.

[Jamo]

Excellent photos! Thanks for sharing 

[stefanbuss]

Where were these photos taken?

Stefan

[IvotB]

The Photo's were taken in the St. Bavo Church in Haarlem (Harlem  ) in the Netherlands in august 2011. It was there for the celebration of the first flight of the Spin over Haarlem in 1911, flown by Anthony Fokker himself. This flight is regarded as one of the starting points of aviation in the Netherlands.

This is the replica, built by the Fokker factory in 1936. This plane is part of the collection of Aviodrome in Lelystad in the Netherlands. They should also have a 1913 version (not really an original one I expect), but I don't have a recollection of having seen this plane.

regards,
Ivo

P.S., David: you are completely right. In dutch it is Spin, in german Spinne and in english Spider. Nice thing is that the i in all three versions sounds different.

[Old Man]

Great stuff, Sir.

This would be one helluva thing to try a scratch-build of....

[uncletony]

Great stuff, Sir.

This would be one helluva thing to try a scratch-build of....

Yeah, who would be crazy enough to try that... Wait!

[David]

Thank you very much for letting me know, Ivo.

Even though it's a replica, it's very old and historically significant.  Presumably it's built accurately.  It looks authentic to me.

Thank you also for the explanation of the name.  It's interesting that he changed the spelling for the different countries!  You learn something every day!

Regards,

David.

[IvotB]

Well, the plane looks authentic, but I already found one major difference and that's the engine. I'm not absolutely sure, but this engine might be an 105 HP Hirth HM504A and it seems to be air cooled, where the Spin between 1910 and 1913 had all kinds of different engines.

There first was the Spin 1 (1910), which was fitted with a 50 HP Argus 4 cylinder engine. The Spin 1 crashed by Frans von Daum. Then the Spin 2 (1911) was built with thesame engine which was crashed by Von Daum too. Then he made the Spin 3 with which successful flights were made. These 3 Spinnes had 2 radiators at the side of the fuselage. Then afterwards the Spin got sometimes a 70 HP Renault V8 air cooled engine.

There is mention of Spinnes in 1912 being equipped with Argus 100 HP engines. Further development led to the earlier Eindecker types.

The 1912 / 1913 Spinnes started to have not only a wooden frame as fuselage, but a kind of closed frame.

regards,
Ivo

[Zabu]

Very nice photos. Thank you for those.

Cheers

[David]

Thank you very much for the extra information, Ivo.

At first I thought that the engine was a modern engine, but when I looked closer I saw what looks to me like an Argus badge.  I would be very interested to find out if it is an Argus or a Hirth as you suggest.  I don't know much at all about these very early engines, and I hope someone is able to supply more information.  Being a replica, albeit an early one the engine type, brand and other details will not necessarily be correct.  I did not know that Renault V8 engines were used in early Spins.  No doubt this stopped when the war started, but I have learned over the years that both sides either copied or made engines and other components under licence.  I even learned relatively recently that even the Vickers machine gun was based on the German Maxim gun!  One of the many ironies of war.

Regards,

David.

[uncletony]

I even learned relatively recently that even the Vickers machine gun was based on the German Maxim gun!

Not to hijack the subject, but this requires correcting, you have the facts upside down -- Hiram Maxim was an an American citizen living in England when he invented the machine gun that bears his name. The German MG 08 and derivatives ("Spandau") were adaptations of the Vickers / Maxim design.