A story of the past

[Jilles]

Hi all. For those interested a little story from the past.
Some time agao I designed and built a 1:3 model of the Dutch Fokker Baby PH-152 . The following is the story behind this model. Most of my scale models are models I have flown in the past at Full scale.. In the 1930's the Grunau Baby was a very popular glider. After WW2 the Dutch Glider association asked Fokker to built a 30 or so to help clubs to start up again. These gliders could be hired by the clubs and were named Fokker Baby's because they were built by Fokker with some mod's. The main changes were an elliptical rudder shape instead of trapezoidal and air- brakes. The club I was member of had two of these the PH-152 and PH-158
In 1954 the PH-152 had a bad crash because a student landed down wind at high speed and flipped over. No injuries but one wing was in two pieces and the fuse in three pieces even so that might not be visible on the attached picture of the crash. My Dad decided to fix it all and it was done in the attic of our house.
First the fuse then the wing. The pieces could be moved to the attic just over the internal stair cases. After repair it was an other matter. It all fitted through a window at the back of the house, the wing chord fitted diagonally through the window. It involved a long timber post wires, pulleys and lots of muscle power. It worked and the glider flew again and is as far as I know still airworthy. I was 7-8 years old at the time. By the time I got flying the PH-152 was hired to an other club and flew my first solo on the PH-158. Much later I did fly the PH-152 when visiting the club that owned it at the time. I got comments from it does not matter if you crash it your Dad will fix it again. Attached are some pictures of my model, the initial crash, both wing and fuselage in our attic and the removal of the fuselage from the attic. The old pictures are a bit grainy because they are scanned, negatives are lost.
My model has a wheel that was added to fuil scale gliders later easier for the tow plane. It does have the Varnish finish as was standard in that time.
Cheers Jilles

[paulj]

Many thanks for sharing this story Jilles! Amazing to see how the parts came back out of the loft!

[Philkiteflyer]

Jilles, love the story. Obviously your father was a clever man.
Of course you couldn't do that in todays "Health and Safety" world - man on the roof - is he harnested somehow?
Is the model pilot a model of you ? ?

thanks for sharing,
Phillip C

[Jilles]

No Health and Safety and no harnesses. Typical for the 1950'swhat ever you do you are dressed properly. The guys in the window and standing in the gutter wear a shirt and Tie
The pilot in the model was bought from the hobby shop.This one isat the correct 1:3 scale. came accross it by accident.
The pilot in my Ka6E model is a copy of myself, 3D printed by my son