Albatros and Pfalz

[BHuber]

Hello there,

i haven't been here for quite a while, but nevertheless i did some profiling. Besides some other projects i was really impressed and inspired by Blowhards' amazing work on the Albatros D.V. I drew this machine myself quite a time ago and tried to improve it now by some techniques i learned at Simmerspaintshop and according to the very detailed photo material of wingnut wings and vintage aviator. And while i was working on the D.V i decided to do some more WWI-stuff...

So here are two new drawings for you: it's a Albatros D.V flown by Paul Bäumer at Jasta 5 and a Pfalz D.IIIa flown by Rudolf Berthold at Jasta 18.

I know i can't compete with Blowhard's skills but my drawings are mainly made for the german Wikipedia. I hope you like them anyway and critique is always welcome...

[BLOWHARD]

HEY NOW! Very nice indeed! I've been thinking about the Pfalz too, it's a really beautiful plane!
I'm really happy to see more WW1 stuff here too.
You picked really nice markings for these and the wood on the D.V is really good looking. Will you do one like your avatar?
I've got to get back to mine, there are still so many more D.Vs I'd like to do!
GREAT STUFF BHuber!!!

[adlabs6]

Very nice.

Should there be a shadow reaching down from the elevator of the D.V?

[helischmidt]

Hello there,

i haven't been here for quite a while, but nevertheless i did some profiling. Besides some other projects i was really impressed and inspired by Blowhards' amazing work on the Albatros D.V. I drew this machine myself quite a time ago and tried to improve it now by some techniques i learned at Simmerspaintshop and according to the very detailed photo material of wingnut wings and vintage aviator. And while i was working on the D.V i decided to do some more WWI-stuff...

So here are two new drawings for you: it's a Albatros D.V flown by Paul Bäumer at Jasta 5 and a Pfalz D.IIIa flown by Rudolf Berthold at Jasta 18.

I know i can't compete with Blowhard's skills but my drawings are mainly made for the german Wikipedia. I hope you like them anyway and critique is always welcome...

Hi Bjorn,

two very nice profile of you
In the Pfalz D. IIIa me the shadow is a bit too dominant ... I love it more discreet.
But that's a matter of taste.

Kind regards
Heli

Hallo Björn,

zwei sehr schöne Profile von Dir.
Bei der Pfalz D.IIIa ist mir der Schatten etwas zu dominant... ich liebe es dezenter.
Aber das ist ja Geschmackssache.

Herzliche Grüße
Heli

flyingART

[Espenlaub]

Björn,

gefällt mir sehr!

Gruß
Hans-Jürgen

PS: sieh mal nach den Privaten Nachrichten

[elephant]

Very nice pair, indeed.
I have two remarks to make on the Albatros.
1. Are you sure about the dark green metal primer?
It was used mostly on DVa-s and I don't remember seeing any D.V-s with it...
(Speaking from memory, haven't checked any refererence...)
2. The Johannisthal machines had a centerline stencil from both sides of the fuselage.
You can see it here on the starboard side of a D.V,
(the pic was made to show something else, but I had it handy in my photobucket folder)...

[elephant]

One thing more I've noticed, (definately a mistake), is the engine cover hood.
The crease on the sides is an OAW characteristic and shouldn't be there in a D.V.
Johannisthal machines had plain hoods.

[BLOWHARD]

Just to add to Elephant's comments, those mistakes are pretty easy to make based on the museum samples. It's not easy to figure out what is correct on these things, and many others have made those mistakes too.
If you want to get even more detail oriented, the upper cowling retaining strap is rare save for later D.Vas. If you look at a bunch of photos you'll see more without than with that strap.

[BHuber]

Hello there,

beside many duties i try to finish my current project at the moment. I'm making a series of planes of the top ten german fighter pilots of WWI. Today i want to show you Joseph Jacobs' Fokker Dr.I (48 victories) and an aircraft that raises some questions to me: it's Franz Büchners Fokker D.VII (40 victories). I have a pretty good picture of Büchners personal emblem which i still have to improve a little bit. But furthermore i have only one picture of the whole aircraft and the overall colour of the fuselage and the underside of the wings is not clear to me. The colour seems to be very bright, but i'm not sure if it is really this turquoise - i've seen this colour on some drawings which means that the colour is an interpretation. I think a bright blue is also possible, but i'm not sure about this. Does anybody have reliable informations about the colours of Büchners plane?

Greeting:

B. Huber

[BLOWHARD]

Nice subjects B. Huber
I'm pretty sure Büchner's plane was standard factory finish. I don't believe I've ever seen a production D.VII with anything else but printed fabric.
I'm pretty sure this plane, like all the others from Jasta 13, would have had 4 or 5 color printed fabric all around. Büchner's plane is almost certainly covered with 5 color fabric. It also light (probably blue) rib tapes and probably the same solid color wing edging too, not cut from printed fabric. They could have been pink and not blue though.
It looks like his plane had white walls! Definitely not something you see on war time D.VIIs but they sure look like white walls rather than dried mud or darker tread area.
The only photo I've seen that shows the horizontal tale shows that it was looking dark.

I'm pretty sure standard Jasta 13 markings were the same blue as the fuselage for the horizontal tales.
The green used for Jasta 13 looks very dark in the photos, which might not mean it was dark of course. But I'd be willing to bet that green was the standard OAW factory green.
One of the RGB quotes I have is 30/69/58 but it might have been more olive colored.
No matter the shade the all the struts were painted the same dark color as the nose.

The standard Jasta 13 blue was more dark than you have here, however, Büchner's plane was lighter than the other in the Jasta so you guess is as good as any others.
It looks like your colors are largely based on other artist's interpretations, but maybe give some thought to that green color. I doubt it was that light or bright as most artists have shown it. I have no idea where the idea of the Jasta 13 creamy green or bright green idea comes from but some of the earliest illustrious of Jasta colors show it and other artists repeated it with looking at that very dark color shown in the photos. Unless it is very yellow in color, it probably was very dark and not cause by orthochromatic film.

Some interesting reading about Büchner's plane along with most of the known photos-
Karl Schlegels Marking - Hopefully some useful Info - Page 2
Plus you'll need this one-


On your Dr.I, watch your interplane struts. They were not airfoil sectioned, they were flat slabs of wood. Check out these photos-



You might want to take a look at this-
Camouflage & Markings: Fokker Dr. I Aces
(The last section is about the Jacobs' devil head plane)
There is some debate about the flames across the fuselage reaching the front of the plane. It can't be see in the photos and might not have been there.