Retired pilot builds WW1 plane and runway in garden

A retired dentist friend is building a full-scale Sopwith Pup with an original engine.

And he’s building it in his garden…of sorts…he has a hangar next to his home in a “fly-in” community.

Kaiser Bill?

Seeing as we have had it nearly 100 years -maybe it could be sent back to it’s original owner !

If you’re in the UK, you can easily see the only surviving original Fokker E.I Eindekker hanging in the Science Museum, South Ken. An oft overlooked treasure.

It’s like a fun scale, between 3/4 and 5/8ths of full size. It is indeed an airdrome replica, know the chap well, my workshop used to be about 500 yards from this strip and he used to pop in regularly with the machine! Great little project

Fb

I was also wondering on the scale of it but i too just thought maybe they were that small.

Nice link, thanks. He’s one lucky (and well-off) guy!
Quick q: is the Eindecker full-scale? If so I hadn’t appreciated how tiny they were!

According to the report in the paper this week it is. Quoted as costing him 12k to build but I’m guessing that is just the cost of the airframe kit. I imagine that you can add the cost of engine, instruments (few as they are) and covering.

Looks like one of the Robert Baslee/Grass Strip Aviation Eindeckers.

If he’s got the money, skill and space to do it fair play to him I say. I hope he enjoys many happy hours aviating from his garden. Far less chance of being injured getting from home to the airfield that way.

Yikes ,that landing strip looks narrow,nice plane.

Nice story.