COBI Fokker Dr.1 Red Baron Set 2996

COBI's Fokker Dr.1 Red Baron is a 1:32 model built from 221 blocks, 18 cm long with a 22.5 cm span. The propeller, wheels and ailerons move, and two machine guns sit in front of the cockpit. Two figures are included: Manfred von Richthofen with new uniform prints — jacket and officer's cap — and his dog Moritz. A brick with the aircraft name completes the set. All markings are printed; no stickers.

The dog in the box is real

Moritz was a Great Dane, and he belonged to Manfred von Richthofen from 1916 until the pilot's death. Richthofen wrote about him at length in his own memoir — more warmly than he wrote about most people — and described him as the most beautiful creature he had ever owned.

The dog lived on the airfield, slept in Richthofen's quarters, and travelled with the squadron when it moved. Richthofen took him up in a two-seater once. By his own account Moritz was thoroughly unimpressed and never went again.

Richthofen also recorded, without much sympathy for himself, that Moritz once ran into a propeller and lost part of an ear.

After 21 April 1918 the dog stayed with the squadron. COBI has put him in the box because he was there, and it is the detail that makes the set more than a triplane.

The aircraft

The Dr.1 was slower than the fighters it faced and out-turned all of them — three short wings gave enormous lift and a rate of turn nothing could follow. Richthofen scored his last nineteen victories in one. He had 80 in total, more than any pilot of the war, and was shot down and killed over the Somme at 25.

In the COBI range

Set 2986 is the other COBI Fokker Dr.1. Set 2994 is the Fokker D.VII, and 2997 Guynemer's Nieuport 17.

Specifications

Pieces: 221 · Figures: 2, Richthofen and Moritz · Scale: 1:32 · No stickers
Model dimensions: 18 × 22.5 × 9 cm (7.1 × 8.9 × 3.5 in)