Fokker S11 Trainer

[Richard_C]

For Kittyhawk.

At a Duxford flying day. Here's a 7/8 scale model of a SE5A. The builder of the model gets in and drives it around in the sky

 

[AES]

Interesting Richard. What engine is that SE5 powered by please? and is that a Fokker Triplane original/replica in the background LH?

 

[Richard_C]

The cam covers say Wolsey ( like the car) but the owner wasn't around to ask. The Fokker is a replica. I spoke to him last year at a similar show. It's 12 inches to the foot scale, the engine is mock, the real engine is set a little further back and is a small lycoming.

He told me that there are no original Fokker triplanes, one was preserved and displayed in a museum in Berlin but the 8th airforce came along in 1943 and a bomb hit it.

One morning last year I was in the garden and it trundled overhead. I wondered if I had fallen asleep and gone back in time. We are used to all sorts of piston engined stuff overhead but a triplane was unexpected.

 

[Inspector]

When I was a teenager a couple guys from the Vancouver/Fraser Valley area drew plans for a 7/8 SE5 replica that they sold. Here is one of the planes they made that was restored by the Museum from area. SE5A Replica | The Canadian Museum of Flight Perhaps the SE5 Richard posted is from the same plans.

Pete

 

[AES]

The cam covers say Wolsey ( like the car) but the owner wasn't around to ask. The Fokker is a replica. I spoke to him last year at a similar show. It's 12 inches to the foot scale, the engine is mock, the real engine is set a little further back and is a small lycoming.

He told me that there are no original Fokker triplanes, one was preserved and displayed in a museum in Berlin but the 8th airforce came along in 1943 and a bomb hit it.

One morning last year I was in the garden and it trundled overhead. I wondered if I had fallen asleep and gone back in time. We are used to all sorts of piston engined stuff overhead but a triplane was unexpected. View attachment 135283

Thanks Richard. AFAIK (which is a bit, NOT a lot!) Hispano engines powered the original SE5s, though as it was war time, I wouldn't be at all surprised if other powerplants were used as well.

As an aside, Wolsey (the car company) did get into building aero engines for a while, but I THOUGHT that was only after the end of WWI. I could well be wrong though.

Thanks for the triplane pic too. Nice. And to see flying overhead too. Are you QUITE sure that you weren't dreaming about "Snoopy v The Red Baron"???

And thanks to Inspector (Pete) for your link too.

 

[AES]

@Inspector: The name escapes me for the mo, but somewhere in upstate NY there's an apparently very active group with all sorts of WWI and earlier aircraft and according to the YouTube bits and pieces I see, they get up to all sorts of fly-ins, and battle scene recreations.

The name of the place is on the tip of my tongue, and of course, as soon as I've pressed "Post Reply" the name will come back to me!

 

[Gordon Tarling]

Rhinebeck?

G.

 

[AES]

THANK YOU SIR !!!!!!!!!!!

(My wife thinks I've got a memory problem. I don't think I remember what I replied to her the last time I responded to that remark)!

 

[Gordon Tarling]

Rhinebeck's a fab place to visit - in some ways a bit like our Old Warden, but a bit less polished and a bit more humour.

FYI, the SE5a could be fitted with either a Wolsey engine or a Hispano-Suiza engine. That 7/8ths replica probably has either a VW engine, or a small Lycoming, dressed up to look like a Wolsey.

G.

 

[AES]

Rhinebeck's a fab place to visit - in some ways a bit like our Old Warden, but a bit less polished and a bit more humour.

FYI, the SE5a could be fitted with either a Wolsey engine or a Hispano-Suiza engine. That 7/8ths replica probably has either a VW engine, or a small Lycoming, dressed up to look like a Wolsey.

G.

Ah, thanks for that. Never been to Rhinebeck (that's undoubtedly why I couldn't remember the name)! Also thanks for the SE5 engine info. As above, I thought (for some reason) that Wolsey started in aero engines after WWI. Any idea when they did actually start (to save me Googling).

And BTW, I haven't been to OW for "donkey's yonks" either. Used to be great. Was planning a UK road trip with a UK mate to visit/re-visit several aero "museums" and "shows", but then came Covid! Still haven't got around to "rescheduling" yet.

TIA

 

[AES]

Just to prove that I'm not completely incompetent/lazy /forgetful, for Pete, Gordon, Richard, and anyone else interested, Google now tells me that Wolsey started with aero engines in 1910.

Their first was a V8, liquid cooled (+ liquid cooled exhaust stack/s would you believe?) of 60 HP nominal (achieved 55 HP on 4 hour test in 1910). It was called the "60 HP" or the "V8". And they went on with aero engines until the 1930s, including a WWI alternative to the Hispano for SE5s, as already said by you all.

 

[Gordon Tarling]

Interesting info - thanks. Do pay OW, and anywhere else that you fancy, a visit when you're able to. The RAF Museum at Cosford is another that's well worth the admission price.

G.

 

[J-G]

...Wolsey started with aero engines in 1910.

I know I'm a pedant but I think this is important. Throughout this thread the reference has been to 'WOLSEY' engines, whereas I'm sure it ought to be 'WOLESLEY' - as manufactured by Wolesley Motors Ltd. initially in Birmingham created by a co-operation between Austin & Vickers.

 

[AES]

Yeah J-G, I too thought it was spelt as you have (and as far as I can remember, I've always spoken it that way). However, whilst of course not infallible (!!!) when I typed WOLSEY (plus aero engines) into Google it immediately put me onto a Wiki page which, low and behold, used what I had thought to be that "incorrect" spelling.

Short answer? "I dunno"! (or as the Germans would have it "ich bin überfragt" - literally "I am overasked")! They do have some lovely (and 'orrible" too) sayings in German.

 

[AES]

Interesting info - thanks. Do pay OW, and anywhere else that you fancy, a visit when you're able to. The RAF Museum at Cosford is another that's well worth the admission price.

G.

Yup, OW and Cosford (where I've never been BTW) AND Hendon (ditto, never there either I'm ashamed to say) were on the original list and no doubt will rejoin the "new" list. Thanks.

 

[J-G]

However, whilst of course not infallible (!!!) when I typed WOLSEY (plus aero engines) into Google it immediately put me onto a Wiki page which, low and behold, used what I had thought to be that "incorrect" spelling.

That does seem 'odd' - - - when I tried that (concerned that I had made an error - and that there was such a company) it asked if I meant 'Wolesley'.

Although Wolesley started in Birmingham and moved to Oxford when William Morris (Lord Nuffield) bought it out of receivership in 1927, I have a personal link due to Coventry being the other great seat of Automotive engineering. Morris Motors had a plant very close to where I grew up - in fact I past it every day on my way to school, and my 'Paper Round' included delivering to houses in 'Nuffield Road' - named for Lord Nuffield of course.

 

[alz]

Sorry to lower the tone, but it reminds me - as a retired newspaperman - of one night when a latter-day Fokker aircraft was involved in an emergency landing at our local airport. The editor was an aeroplane enthusiast, and when a senior reporter returned from the scene he asked exactly what type of plane it was.
He didn't realise the veteran reporter had obviously dropped in for a dram or two, and waving the copy demanded loudly: "Well, did it have the wing above the fuselage, or below the fuselage?"
"I don't what the Fokker was," roared back the irate reporter. The editor stalked off as the entire newsroom erupted in laughter.