Background

The Albatros D.V was to be the last of the line offighters and scouts stemming from the Albatros D.I. When the Albatross D.V was introduced,it was seen by many front-line pilots as a step backward. So much so pilotslike Udet chose to wait for the far superior Fokker D.VII to come into service. Richtoffen was hugely critical of the last of the Albatrosses, suggesting that it was "so obsolete and so ridiculously inferior to the English that one can't do anything with this aircraft". Shortcomings included: inferior performance,structural failures, and heavy controls leading to pilot fatigue. Despite the inherent flaws 900 D.V’s were manufactured. As a result of the problems the AlbatrosD.Va was produced featuring stronger wing spars, heavier wing ribs and a reinforced fuselage. It became the most numerous fighters produced by the Germans with 1,612 being built before production was halted in April 1918. After WWI the Albatross D.V/D.Va was incorporated into many Air Forces emerging in Europeand served with some Air Forces well into the 1920’s.

The Kit

Just the one plastic sprue covers all you need to build the airframe of the Albatros D.V. The shapely plywood fuselage is captured very well. There are fine raised areas representing the access hatches for the engine compartment. There are small locating pins in the fuselage to aid construction. 

Both wings are one-piece items, with the control surfaces integral to the upper wing. There is no sign of ejector marks on the surface. The radiator in the upper wing is nicely detailed. Each of the one-piece interplane struts need one of the supports removing. This support is one of the modifications for the D.Va. The two cabane struts are also one piece. There a small indentation in the wings and fuselage indicating the location points of the struts. The instructions have a pretty good rigging guide.

The control stick, rudder bar, seat and floor incorporating the seat mount are the only detail supplied for the cockpit. The detail Eduard has included is not fully representative of the Albatross D.V cockpit, so you may want to address the shortcomings with some scratch building or obtaining Eduards Albatros D. V Weekend pre-coloured photo etched Zoom set [SS741]. The cockpit wall needs to be painted as there is no decal to represent the plywood finish. The four-part engine isn’t the most detailed, but is more than adequate. The two guns has fine detail representing the cooling slots in the sleeve. The ejector chutes for the cartridges are included as separate parts.

The propeller is one piece and the centre has a rounded streamlined boss to add to it. To the rear the horizontal tailplane is one piece. The upper vertical surface a lower are each one piece.

The undercarriage is made up from five parts. The hubs and tyres are moulded as one

Eduard has gone above and beyond with the decals helping the modeller create the look of the four marking options. The decals on two sheets include the printed pattern found on many German aircraft. The wing rib tape are separate decals and there are around 104 for both main wings. Placing them might be a bit tedious but where they are placed is well marked with the raised ribs. You may be glad to read that the rib tape is only applied to option‘D’. A lot of the markings are included on the decal sheet saving a lot of time and trouble. There are stencils to added to some of the struts, testing your nerve and patience. Eduard leave no stone upturned in researching their subjects.

The A5 format instruction comprise of eight pages half of which are the full colour views of the four marking options. Not many parts so shouldn’t take too long to build.

The four marking options offer some interesting colourful paint choices. The decals help enormously with some of the markings, but there is a fair bit of masking involved to achieve the desired finish particularly on the black and white fuselage of option ‘D’.

Conclusions

Eduard 1:72 scale Albatros D.V Weekend is a great canvas if your chief objective is to represent the many colourful subjects found on the Albatros D.V as well as other German aircraft of the time. It’s a kit of few parts and the enormously useful patterned decals for the fabric wings is areal bonus.

7406 - Albatros D.V Weekend – 1:72

Our thanks to Eduard for this review sample

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