The Fieseler Fi-167 was a two seat single engine biplane designed for use on the Graf Zeppelin aircraft carrier as a torpedo bomber and reconnaissance aircraft.

It was the winner of a design competition between Fieseler and Arado. Like the famous Storch, the Fi-167 had amazing slow speed capabilities and was able to land almost vertical on a moving aircraft carrier.

Two prototypes were built, and 12 pre-production aircraft. There were very few modifications between the two. The aircraft exceeded all requirements by far, and had excellent handling capabilities and could carry about twice the required weapons payload.

When the construction of Graf Zeppelin was stopped in 1940, the aircraft production was halted, and the 12 aircraft in existence were entering service in Test Group 167 (“Erprobungsgruppe 167″).

After the Stuka took over as the major dive bomber, nine of the Fi-167s were sent to Holland at a naval squadron, until 1943 when they were sold to Romania. The 3 remaining aircraft were used at the German Aircraft Experimantal Institute (Deutsche Vesuchsanstalt fur Luftfahrt”). None exists today.

The specifications:

Length: 11.40 m (37 ft 4 in)
Wingspan: 13.50 m (44 ft 3 in)
Height: 4.80 m (15 ft 9 in)
Powerplant: 1? Daimler-Benz DB 601B
Maximum speed: 325 km/h (176 knots, 202 mph)
Cruise speed: 250 km/h (135 knots, 155 mph)
Range: 1,300 km (703 nmi, 808 mi)
Service ceiling: 8,200 m (26,900 ft)
Guns: 1 7.92 mm MG 17 machine guns, 1 MG-15 machine gun in rear cabin.
Bombs:
1 x 1000 kg (2,200 lb) bomb or
1 x 765 kg (1,685 lb) torpedo or
1 x 500 kg (1,100 lb) bomb plus 4 x 50 kg (110 lb) bombs

I have collected all the information I could get – which is not much. However, I believe it is enough to get a decent model out of it. It might not be 100% scale, but as a first attempt, I think it will be pretty good.

I will design this using CAD, and then do the build. I will be using a mixture of (inadequate) 3-view drawings, the available photos, and a Czech plastic kit, and common sense during the design phase. I am a pretty fast builder, but really slow at CAD, so it might take a while before wood chips starts flying.

I have been collecting photos and bought two books. One is the autobiography of Gerhard Fieseler and the other is an academic report on the Fi-167.

WARNING – AVOID THIS RIP-OFF PUBLISHER!

The “academic report” from Alphascript Publishing is a complete rip-off. First of all, it has the wrong aircraft on the cover, and the contents is two (2) pages from Wikipedia about the Fi-167 and the rest of this useless piece of shit publication is random aviation facts. The $60 + shipping I paid is a complete RIP-OFF!

I have received the plastic model from Pavla Models in the Czech Republic.

The first thing I need to do is to verify that the 3-views I have are accurate, and that the plastic model I got is too.

Since the 3-views I have are less than stellar, I probably won’t be able to do any lofting of the fuselage formers based on them. Instead, I hope the plastic model corresponds well with the pictures of the actual aircraft, so I can take measurements off of that.

To see if the plastic model is to scale, I printed out the photo of the real aircraft, and placed the plastic parts on top of it.

It fits to a T (with the exception of the tail wheel). Very impressive work by the Czechs. It is quite clear that the plastic model is the way to go, compared to the 3-views. I’m one very happy camper.

I have received a detailed 3-view from Deutsches Museum in Berlin. Interestingly enough, it was drawn by Bjorn Karlstrom – one of the most prolific aircraft artists ever. I have a lot of Swedish magazines dating back to the 1940’s and they are full of drawings by Karlstrom. Most of them, I suspect, he drew from photos, without having ever seen the actual aircraft.

The Fieseler Fi-167 drawings are up to the typical Karlstrom standard, with the exception of a couple of spots. In particular, he got the cowl shape wrong on the side-view. It just doesn’t look “shark-like”, but more like the cowl from a Piper Pawnee!

I will have to overlay the 3-view with the photos and correct this problem before I can continue.

I will obviously have to look through the 3-view in detail to see if anything else needs fixing. At first glance, it looks great, though.

I have not been able to identify the actual airfoil used based on the Karlstrom drawings, so I had to revert back to the available photographs.

The closest I could find was the Goettingen 676. This turned out to be the same airfoil used on the Fieseler F2-Tiger. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Interestingly enough, this airfoil shape does not have a lot of camber, and the lift coefficient is quite average. The stall angle, however, is huge.

Compared to the extremely slow-flying Storch, I believe Fieseler chose the Goettingen 676 airfoil for this aircraft, to get a decent cruise-speed. However, with all the slats and flaps in operation, the Fi-167 lift coefficient could be increased by at least a factor 3 during take-off and landing.

I have scanned the 3-View into the CAD program and am ready to trace the outline of the aircraft.

There are many ways to skin a cat, and I always draw my aircraft to the scale of the model, not to the scale of the real aircraft. I think it is easier – a 3mm balta sheet gets drawn with a thickness of 3mm. No conversion is required once the 3-Views have been imported and scaled to the size of the model. It also makes it easier to “plug in” models of servos and engines to see if they fit.

The 3-Views are almost always slightly off. They have been distorted by the photocopy process, humidity and other factors. They are hardly ever completely symmetrical, and the left and right side of the aircraft may not correspond 100%. The same with the top view – it may not correspond 100% with the side view, etc. etc. This is where common sense comes into the picture.

Odd measurements should probably be rounded to the nearest integer numbers, i.e. the width of the fuselage was measured as 24,119 cm (1.20595 m on the real airplane) and was rounded down to 24 (1.20m on the real airplane). The distances between wing ribs should probably be identical too. It is more likely that the guy who drew the 3-View was sloppy, than the engineers at the Gerhard Fieseler Werke spread out the wing ribs at random distances. It is quite tedious work, but once done, I have a 3-View with all the measurements I need.

The Fieseler Fi-167 aircraft had a ridiculous amount of high-lift devices. It is said that Gerhard Fieseler during a demo sank the aircraft from 9800 ft to 100 ft, practically over the same spot while having full control over the plane. Ths is probably the aircraft with the most slats and flaps ever built. The Fi-167 had 2 automatic and independent slats on each wing – very exciting, but it will be hell to model. Not only were there a lot of high-lift devices, but they were also huge. A total of 10 percent of the chord is slats and 20 is flaps approximately.

The upper wings are of the “candy-bar” design, i.e. they are not tapered towards the wing-tip.

Using the Goettingen airfoil, I have drawn the top wing in CAD.

I then cut out the wing ribs. I did this with a scroll-saw for the ply wood parts, and with a scalpel for the balsa parts. If you do not have a scroll-saw, you can use a fret-saw, a hacksaw, or practically any other saw. cut 1 or 2 mm outside the line, and sand down to the line for the best results.

Finally, I  glued it all together using white wood glue. I prefer this glue for spruce, as it penetrates into the wood and gives a stronger joint than i.e.cyanoacrylate (superglue).

The wing-tips on this aircraft proved a bit of a headache. It is not the normal shape, but the top of the wing is flush all the way to the tip.

After a lot of head-scratching, here is what I came up with.

…and drawn in Alibre.

… and when cut from wood.

Since my order for wood still has not arrived, I decided to work on the flap hinges. I cut them from PCB material.

Here is the hinge dry-fitted to the top wing. I quickly realized that a single layer of PCB is not enough, and I will have to cut some more. The two hinge parts are joined with a nylon bushing and an M3 screw and lock-nut.

Here is the wing seen from the side. Yes I know the hinge-shape is slightly wrong. The vertical part should be more rounded, and the part to the left should be a bit fatter. I will clear that up in the CAD drawing and make a new set.

I spent all day drawing the flaps in CAD. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it.  The 3-view, and the panel lines on the plastic model, had me completely stumped. Since, I do not have a photo of the top side of the lower wing, I could not confirm it, and nothing seemed to match. I have literally drawn every type of aileron, flap and hinge combination in the book, including Friese types. The only 3-view showing the flaps correctly, is the ugly coloured one from Germany.

Anyway, I got there in the end.

I have been looking at the fuselage formers in the 3-view, trying to figure out how they were originally created. So far, I have figured out that the top of the fuselage, from the thrust-line and up, was, in essence, elliptical in shape. I have not yet figured out how the lower parts were created. Since I know that they were elliptical in shape, all the way from the prop to the tail light, it will be really easy to draw in the missing ones.

I also added a rough landing gear, and “glued” it all together. I am happy with the result, but a lot of work is still required. The biggest problem will be figuring out the lower part of the fuselage.

The word is getting out, that I am working on the Fieseler Fi-167. One of the leading UK plastic-modelling website now links to me. Together with the link from the Italian modelling forum, I should get more visitors, which is great.

I have spent the entire day cleaning up the fuselage. I decided to use a crutch and stringers. There are 16 stringers all the way around the fuselage. They are simply there to prevent the fuselage from twisting while the sheeting is added.

Yesterday I drew the tail. It consists of a crutch that the elevators can rest on. The idea is to build the crutch first, then glue in the lower longerons, then the sheeted elevator and then the upper longerons. The fuselage will be sheeted with balsa afterwards. Next step is to do the same with the rudder.

I have started on the engine mounting box. There are two engine options. 1) A Hacker A60L electric brushless motor, and 2) A ZDZ-40 petrol engine. The Fieseler Fi-167 has a very long and narrow cowl, and these were the only two engines I was was able to fit, without a huge hole in the side of the airplane. The ZDZ-40 moved back 20 cm will fit the engine cooling fins where the actual cooler was on the Fi-167.

The engine mounting box should be assembled first, so I have to figure out how to make the firewall and how to fix the crutch and the fuselage formers to the box.

I have fixed some strength issues in the tail. First of all, making room for the pushrods etc., proved a headache. It is getting really crowded back there.

Next I will be the strengthening up of the former where the tail-wheel is going to be attached.

I have now done the landing gear. Despite being non-retractable, there is quite a bit of mechanics in there. I hope I will be able to machine the parts.

And the tail wheel assembly. This requires the machining of a shock absorber. I hope this goes well.