I posted a few of these shots over at the ROF forum a year or two back, but I thought you all might be interested. In the small town of Knowlton, Quebec, not far from the Vermont border, the county museum houses a Fokker D7 OAW brought to Canada as a war trophy after the war. A local senator whose son had flown with the RFC / RAF and been killed requested one of the 22 Fokkers shipped to Canada as a memorial for his home town. The other aircraft were dismantled or sold. Many were used by Howard Hughes in "Hell's Angels."

But the Brome County Museum has housed their surviving plane ever since, and it has never been restored. In summer of 2013, I paid it a visit en route to the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal (my other passion is F1).

I didn't have a tripod and the light was low, so this is the best I could do with my cheap little camera.

I'd go to jail if I were you. I'd have jumped right into it and go "prrrr ratatata" while I pee myself out of joy. And I wouldn't mind going to jail neither, happy do the time if I can do the crime.

Thanks for the pics Raine! Amazing, to think that fabric is 100 years old....

Thanks,never knew of this plane before. Your little camera did a decent job.

Thanks for posting these shots.

This is actually an Albatros built, OAW designed Fokker D.VII. Most notable by the serial number Fok D.VII (Alb). The OAW version is very similar to this, aside from the cowlings, nose color, lozenge pattern and serial number. The OAW used 4-color, the Albs used a lot of 5-color Lozenge. The Albs and OAWs had similar cowlings, but some of the OAW's used circular cooling vents. The nose of the OAW's were olive with mauve spots on all versions... unless painted by the Jasta/pilot. Other than those little differences, it's very hard to tell them apart.

I had seen theses before and studied parts of them when I was making the Alb built version of the D.VII. I wish the colors weren't so yellowed by the lack of lighting when the photos were taken. But even so, you did an awesome job! I have to go there some day. I have a friend in Burlington I can visit, and use for an excuse to see this bird. LOL!

It's a beautiful survivor, and really amazing to see some of what the original print may have looked like. You can see it in the last shot on the wing-root of the left wing.

It's been repaired several times. I read that near the end of the war, the German mechanics were so desperate to keep these things flying that they used any available Fokker fabric to fix them. Meaning you could have underside placed in sections on topside.. etc. You can see some evidence of that in the picture of the right side of the fuselage. The area under the cockpits does not match the rest of the fuselage... also, it looks like the right wing might be a different color pattern than the left, hard to tell with such poor lighting effecting the colors.

Another nice shot is the nose cowling. The two slots in the radiator which provided extra 'ram air' cooling for the engine block.

One other interesting point of this plane is that only the top wing has 'blue' rib taping. The lower wing does not, nor does the tail section. The tail looks like it has fabric strips, much like a Fokker built D.VII's used. In fact, close inspection of that photo shows the serial number is from another plane... an O.A.W built.. 6506? So she may have been pieced together. The rudder fabric is definitely newer than the rest of the fabric on the plane. It's too white, and the cross in the wrong position for the Alb built types. It should be on the rudder. That looks like an OAW placement which makes sense.

Some of the Alb versions were also known to have been mostly covered in underside (lighter) fabric on the lower wings, and fuselage sides. It looked strange, but then again, isn't that the point of lozenge fabric! LOL! This plane shows evidence of that as well.

Great stuff, thanks for posting here. We love this stuff too!!

OvS

Great pictures, that doping looks pretty shiny to me..

OvStachel,

Great review of the aircraft. It had quite clearly made use of cannibalized parts, as you quickly noted. Take a look at this close-up of the tailplane. Not even the tailplane and elevators matched!



I was also interested in the foot braces at the wing root.



The left upper wing clearly shows the mix of fabrics used on this aircraft this late in the war. This photo is from the museum website.

Raine, thanks for this post It is wonderful to know she still exists. Very educational and fun to see.