Junkers F.13 by MiniArt

1/48 scale
Kit No. 48002
Retail: $65.00
Decals: Three versions
Comments: Complete engine, optional position hatches and doors, highly detailed cockpit and passenger compartment, separately mounted ailerons

History

Designed and built in Germany during the closing months of World War I, the Junkers F.13 was the first all-metal, cantilever-wing monoplane airliner and a truly modern aircraft for its time. The designation “F” stood for Flugzeug, or aircraft. Junkers’ (and possibly the world’s) first commercial airplane featured a cockpit accommodating two pilots and a fully enclosed, heated cabin seating four passengers in the same comfort to be found in automobiles of the day.

Passenger seats were fitted with seatbelts, a never-before-seen innovation in either motor cars or aircraft at that time. It flew for the first time on June 25, 1919, with test pilot Emil Monz, who had served as a reconnaissance pilot during the war, at the controls. On September 13, 1919, Monz flew the second F.13, with seven passengers on board, to an altitude of 6,750 meters (22,146 feet), setting an unofficial world record.

Upon its debut, the Junkers F.13 was a very advanced aircraft. Up to that time, airplanes had primarily been built of wood, a material vulnerable to termites and susceptible to changes in dimension due to temperature and humidity, which can warp it with time. The F.13’s corrugated duralumin skin (an aluminum alloy) made it both lighter and significantly stronger than wood.

The heated passenger cabin featured both windows and doors in the fuselage sides, but the pilots climbed into the cockpit directly through openings in the fuselage. There was no onboard service nor restroom on the aircraft. The Junkers could land both on grass and on dirt fields, since at that time the airfields were simply demarcated areas. The flights were marked by turbulence (the aircraft flew quite low by modern standards) and engine’s loud noise. The flight was all visual, following references on the ground, where the names of cities written on the roofs of railway stations helped a lot. When weather conditions prevented navigation by sight, the flight was virtually blind; pilots were guided by a compass and a pocket watch.

The F. 13 used a fixed conventional split landing gear with a rear skid, though some variants landed on floats or on skis, and the fact that the conventional landing gear could be switched our for floats in particular added to the type’s popularity, especially in foreign sales; as of 1919-20, waterways were more readily accessible to aircraft than prepared landing fields.

The F.13 was powered by a 127 kW (170 hp) Mercedes D.IIIa inline upright water-cooled engine, which had often been the powerplant for Germany’s combat aircraft during the war. The first production machines had a wing of greater span and area and had the more powerful 140 kW (185 hp) BMW IIIa upright inline water-cooled motor.
Many variants were built using Mercedes, BMW, Junkers, and Armstrong Siddeley Puma liquid-cooled inline engines, as well as Gnome-Rhône Jupiter and Pratt & Whitney Hornet air-cooled radial engines, although the radial powered aircraft featured a redesigned nose and had a decidedly different appearance.

The Junkers F.13 was the DC-3 of its day, accounting for significant commercial export sales. 322 of the type were manufactured, an exceptionally large number for a commercial airliner of that era, and were operated all over the globe. It was in production for thirteen years and in commercial service for more than thirty, and was operated by Austria, Poland, Colombia, Bolivia, England, France, Italy, and Japan — and was even built under license in the United States by John Larsen Aircraft, and operated by the U.S. Post Office Department under the designation JL-6.

Junkers set up its own airline – Junkers Luftverkehr AG in 1921 – to encourage the acquisition of the F.13 by German airlines which was flying 60 of them by 1923. They also established a branch of this airline in Iran. Other marketing techniques were used, providing F 13s on cheap leases and free loans, with such effect that some 16 operators across Europe were flying them. When Junkers Luftverkehr merged into Lufthansa in 1926, the F.13 had flown 9.5 million miles. Lufthansa itself bought 55 aircraft and in 1928 were using them on 43 domestic routes. Even in 1937, their F.13s were flying over 50 flights per week on four routes. They were finally withdrawn from Lufthansa service in 1938.

The Kit

MiniArt’s Junkers F.13 is injection molded in grey plastic and consists of 170 parts, including 13 clear parts for the aircrew windscreens, and windows for the doors and cabin as well as the landing lights. There is also a photo-etch fret containing an additional 23 metal parts.

The cockpit is richly detailed with an accurately angled floor, photo-etch seat belts for the pilot and co-pilot, dual control yokes consisting of six parts each, including photo-etch parts, and separately mounted controls and individual dial decals for the main instrument panel. There are also photo-etch seat belts for the couch in the passenger compartment, as well as parts for the window in the compartment’s forward bulkhead and drapes.

The detailed Mercedes-Benz engine consists of 15 parts, and is cemented into a faithfully recreated engine mount in the nose of the aircraft. The separate radiator also has PE enhancements. The corrugated parts for the exterior fuselage surface are detailed with separately mounted handholds to assist with ground handling. There is an option to display the kit without wings, prepared for transport, but the alternative version with the wings attached includes wing spars, which will help with the finished kit’s overall ruggedness. The separately mounted elevators include PE actuators.

Among the kit’s interesting features are a choice of four different two-bladed propellers and both plastic and photo-etch handholds to assist with ground handling. The kit includes a paint guide calling out colors in the Vallejo, Mr. Color, AK Interactive, Mission Models, Ammo MIG, and Tamiya brands.

Markings

The instructions include four-view color plates of each of the three versions for which decals are presented. The first of these is depicted on the box art. DZ 33, a machine of the Aero-Targ Poznan, chartered from Danziger Luftpost GmbH dating to 1921. This aircraft is painted in Yellow with Black undersurfaces and leading edges of the wings, elevators and vertical tail as well as the nose. There is also a Black flash along the center of the plane’s spine. The wings bear red flashes with two white crosses superimposed over them.

The second version is a machine of Junkers-Flugseugwerke AG, circa 1922. D 188 is painted in a scheme similar to the Aero-Targ Poznan aircraft, with Green substituted for Yellow, Black nose, Black undersides, and Black flash along the spine, and Red flashes on the wings sans white crosses.

The third version, Dz 41, is also a machine of the Aero-Targ Poznan, chartered from Danziger Luftpost GmbH dating to 1921, but painted in a scheme of Aluminum with a Black nose and undersides, and Black wingtips. This aircraft also bears red flashes with two white crosses superimposed over them.

Conclusion

I have been interested in building a 1/48 scale version of the Junkers F.13 since building Revell-Germany’s 1/72 scale version in 2022. This kit is a beautifully detailed, upscaled version of what may have been the world’s first commercial passenger plane, which first provided regular air service in Europe over a century ago. Highly recommended for its detail and historical value.

References

• wikipedia.org
• https://www.varig-airlines.com/en/junkersf13.htm
• https://www.avbuyer.com/articles/ga-buyer-europe/what-makes-the-junkers-f13-a-first-of-its-kind-112462