CMR 1/72 Fokker S-11/T-22 Instructor

The 1/72 scale Resin kit of the Fokker Instructor by Czech Master Resin (CMR) represents any one of the versions evolving from the S-11, that is one can build any one of the following versions: S-11, S-12 or T-22.

The Fokker S-11 Instructor is a simple two-seat primary trainer produced in the Netherlands. The first series of 40 was built for the Royal Netherlands Air Force. In the early 50s the Fokker Company also supplied 41 to the Israeli Defence Force Air Force. Macchi also produced the S-11 under license in Italy under the designation M416. 150 were delivered to the Italian Air Force. In 1954 Fokker company established an associate company in Brazil, which produced 100 S-11s and 70 S-12/T-22s. The latter differed only in having a tricycle undercarriage. In 1979 these were known to be still in active service. The Instructor was powered by a 190 HP Lycoming 0-435A engine, which gave a maximum speed of 130 mph and a range of 400 miles.

The kit comes in a polythene bag, which contains all the resin components, a vac form cockpit and a comprehensive decal sheet of high quality as well as several sheets of drawings and pictures to assist making a god replica of the Fokker versions. There is no history included in the instruction sheet normally accompanying scale models but there are included five double sided pages with clear illustrations, close-up pictures which are clear and more than sufficient to detail the kit at the scale of 1/72. These also include two pages with 5 view drawings, which give the exact colour detail for any one chosen from the Dutch, Israeli and Brazilian machines. The close-up picture shows the level of detail provided by the kit.

The resin fuselage is moulded in two halves, which include the vertical tail surfaces, and there is an appreciable amount of detail cast to each side of the cockpit interior. The cockpit walls are of virtually scale thickness that can make for a realistic model in the open cockpit machines. Ones the components are carefully removed from the feeder core all that is needed is a little cleaning up along the bottom surfaces each of which matches perfectly when the two halves are placed together. There are four main wing parts, a pair to go with each version supplied so that one will have to decide at an earlier stage the type intending to build. One set of wings slightly differ from the other set in having chordwise wing stiffeners embossed on the upper wing surface. The leading edge of each wing has slots to take the clear parts to make the landing light, for which clear parts of correct size are also provided. All of the main components contain very fine grooved panel lines. As common with other resin kits there are no grab holes or slots at the wing root joints and one will have to refer to the front elevation drawing depicted on page 4 in order to align the wings correctly. One may remark that in my sample the slightly gull shape on the wings slightly differed from each other. This required surgery using the Xacto blade to cut the wing in two sections and join again carefully obtaining the correct wing angles. The pitot tube which is fitted to the leading edge of the port wing differed from one version to another. Careful study indicated that the version I did had a straight one. This I shaped to the correct size out of a steel pin, which I fitted inside a pre-drilled hole of the correct size.

The cockpit floor is neatly cast with rudder pedals, central console and two control sticks integrated in one piece. A detailed instrument panel, two crew seats and other supporting brackets fitted to the rear of the seats all come in separate parts, some of which are accurately very thin in section but which are delicate to handle. Careful paintwork to the instrument panel and seat harness will not be lost as the cockpit canopy comes in one piece made out of acetate. The tail planes come in two parts with separate supporting struts. There are also four tiny balance weights to fit to the ailerons and elevator areas. Again I preferred to drill a hole of 0.4mm diameter to secure these in the correct emplacement. Two slightly different resin propellers come with the kit, one of which has a nose cone and finally one will have to select the type of exhaust pipes to go with the model being made as several are provided and each version had its ow3n shape and design of exhaust pipe. The S-11 had a tail wheel while the T-22, which is the Brazil version had tricycle undercarriage and again the manufacturer provided alternative sets of undercarriage consisting of three wheel assemblies with each set.

The Fokker Instructor is a colourful aircraft whatever scheme you select from the ones supplied and in the end the 32 resin pieces and three clear parts can turn it into a colourful gem. So one will have to think twice before deciding which scheme to choose fro the three provided. To assist in this there are two colour side view drawings depicting a Brazilian and a Dutch aircraft. The scheme I chose was the Dutch one, which carried several areas in day, glow orange on an otherwise overall trainer yellow. Careful masking with masking tape and maskol produced clean colour separation as shown in the pictures. Having completed the general paintwork of the aircraft I then turned to detailing the cockpit area, adding hand grips to the sliding section of the canopy, wing walkways, antiglare panel etc. using solely the sheets of drawings provided with the kit which provided wealth of detail reference. The decals sheet also provided all the national insignias with the correct registration and good adhesion properties.

All in all this was a pleasing model to build but certainly not for the novice modeller.

August 2005

Carmel J Attard

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