Evening All,
Many people will know of the FE 2b: that aeroplane that looked as though it had been designed in the Jurassic and had somehow survived mass extinction events to pop up in 1915 in time for WW1. Not so many will know that its performance was such that by late 1915 its performance with the original 120hp Beardmore engine was becoming a problem because it had a slow rate of climb and overall slow speed - it could not persue and catch the new tractor types coming into service in the German air arm. A more powerful 160hp beardmore engine was under development, but was presenting huge problems and was being unavoidably delayed, so a stop-gap measure was looked for. It was suggested that the new Rolls Royce 12 cylinder V engine, rated at 250 hp should be fitted to existing FE 2 airframes, so a prototype was built in April 1916 which immediately demonstrated a big increase in performance.. The nacelle had to be modified to take the new engine, and the radiator which was moved and mounted above the upper longerons to improve airflow.
300 machines were ordered but in the end only around 250 were delivered as the 160hp Beardmore engine finally became available in late 1916 and plugged the gap that the 2d had been designed to fill. The other problem was that the pusher concept was also becoming obsolete by late 1916 as newer faster and more heavily armed tractor biplanes were being rapidly introduced.
The type was used on the Western Front in 1916 and reamained in service there until the autumn of 1917 when it was finally withdrawn. 40 were sent to training schools but they were not kept for long as the engines were too useful to be used in this role, and there was little need for pilots of pusher machines.
23 machines were posted to Home Defence squadrons but by 1917 their rate of climb and speed were such that they were of almost no value in intercepting Zeppelins, and these too were not kept in service for very long.
This was scratch built from plastic card, florists wire (booms), strip and rod and is rigged with rolled 40 SWG copper wire. The propellor was carved from wood. There is a build log in the scratch build section of this site.
I will not go into the details of the problems that I had with this build - when it comes to pushers I have form having built a kit, converted at least 6 and scratch built another 7 in 1/72 or 1/32 scale, but this one somehow caused more problems than any of the rest!
There is no serial on the rudder as I did not have suitable transfers, so it is a generic representation of the type as it would have appeared in the summer of 1916. It is brush painted (as usual for me) with acrylics and all markings are hand painted.
If you have got this far, thanks for looking. Now on to something which will hopefully cause fewer problems!
Stephen.