1/32nd Dornier Do J Wal 'N25'- Amundsen & Ellsworth 1925
By Kent Karlsen
Building the Dornier Do J 'Wal' N25
In 1925 Roald Amundsen attempted to fly to the North Pole with five others in two aircraft, the N24 and the N25. They started from Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, on 21 May 1925 and flew side by side to 87°43' N, where they landed on leads in the drift ice after more than eight hours in the air. N24 had been damaged on take-off and it was now obvious that the plane could not be flown again. The six men struggled for 3½ weeks to create a take-off strip on the drift ice. On 15 June Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen managed to get N25 into the air with all six men on board. They landed off the north coast of Svalbard and were able to hitch a ride back to Ny-Ålesund with a small ship which was in the area by chance. There were huge celebrations when the men returned to Oslo.
The 'Wal' is one of the aircraft which has always been a special plane for me. In 2015 I bought a book by M. Michiel van der Mey, “Dornier Wal - a light coming over The Sea" with plans of the aircraft. And right away I started working on the basis for the fuselage. But as it always is with these kinds of projects, it came to a standstill.
Over the years I never abandoned the thought of the build and years later I managed to get the wings done, because I didn't want to proceed if the wings didn't work out. I was very lucky when in 2021 the Dornier Museum in Friedrichshafen completed a 1:1 Replica of 'N25'. I do not think that I would have been able to finish the model if it wasn't for the photos of the Replica in the Museum. The last 3-4 months of 2023 I've been working continuously because of the deadline I had made for myself, the 100-year anniversary of the Polar flight by Amundsen & Ellsworth in May-June 1925.
All of the parts are made by hand except for the Wingnut Wing Rolls-Royce Eagle engines left over from the Aeromarine build. But it has been a 'tour de force' of different methods of making parts for 'N25' - Styrene sheets and profiles, vacuum forming, making masters and casting copies in resin, working with aluminum sheets, reinforcing parts with brass rods, etc.
The Dornier Do Wal wasn't a small plane, the model has a wingspan of nearly 69 cm's and a length of 54 cm's.
Enjoy!
© Kent Karlsen 2025
This article was published on Friday, January 10 2025; Last modified on Friday, January 10 2025