Great War Stories
Building and Maintaining World War I Aircraft
See our blog for the explanation of why farmers made and still make the best WWI aircraft mechanics.
Watch the videos below for an interesting discussion of how VAFM staff figured out why the D.VIII that used to be in the museum's collection flew a little oddly. Millimeters matter in rudder construction!
Part I:
Reinhold Platz, the original engineer, redrew the plans in the 1960s, and that's what this replica was constructed from. He remembered very well, but not perfectly, and it took some history detective work to figure out the difference.
Part II:
Rebuilding the rudder - they even set the original 100-year-old D.VIII rudder on the replica aircraft! Discussion of what's special about the Fokker hinge.
Part III:
So, how did it fly with the new rudder? Watch touch-and-gos by pilot Mark Holliday, and the performance of the aircraft taking off and landing at 5000 feet higher altitude than the aircraft was designed for. Discusses the difference between a wheel landing and a three-point landing.
