Revell Red Baron and His Funfdecker Fokker Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Just after the end of the Battle of Britain, Captain Olaf Swenson, noted Swedish volunteer pilot and ace, was addressing a woman's tea club outside of London as part of a morale tour. He was telling the ladies of his experiences as a fighter pilot and becoming an ace during the recent German air campaign against Britain.

"Der I vas at Angels 15 ven two Fokkers jumped me out of de sun. I shpun my Shpitfire around und rat-a-tat-tat blasted one out of de sky, den broke hard into de other und rat-a-tat-tat blasted dat Fokker too. Before I could find my vingman, another Fokker shtarted down on me und..."

The RAF public relations officer chimed in: "Now ladies, remember that a Fokker is a type of German fighter." To which Olaf replied: "Ja, und shome of de Fokkers ver Messerschmitts!"

My bad...

Here is a classic from Revell that hasn't seen the light of day in decades. This is a caricature of the infamous Red Baron that fought the gallant ace Snoopy in many cartoon strips penned by artist Charles Schultz. Revell designed this kit to represent that dreaded German WWI ace and you can see by the kill marks on the aircraft that he has shot down three previous dog houses.

Originally released as kit H-190, this kit has also seen kit number 7236 and most recently 1735. The instructions show a previous kit number 1735 as well.

The kit is molded in red styrene and presented on five parts trees. One of those five has been chrome plated as part of the caricature. You can see in the images that this kit captures the funfdecker nicely (!!).

The kit can be built with just the rotary engine alone, or with a blown V8 engine tacked to the rear of the rotary. Clearly Tim Allen's "More Power" mantra went into this engine option!

A caricature pilot's head is included that comes complete with a chromed and spiked steel helmet.

If that isn't enough for an enjoyable project, the instructions are written in pseudo-German that is as authentic as my Swedish above.

Markings are provided for a generic funfdecker Fokker, though three dog house kills are also provided.

If you want a fun project to get away from AMS modeling or just to relax for one project, this is one that you've just got to have on your shelf. If you build it up with no paint, it will look pretty cool, but if you take a little time and bring out some of the interesting 'details' molded into the model, this will definitely become an eye-catcher of a model. It is the only decent Funfdecker Fokker I know of in this scale (whatever this scale is!).