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[max_thehitman]

Albatros D.II early-type



November 9 , 1916

In Boelcke's life time,  eight (victories) was quite a respectable number. Those who hear nowadays of the colossal bags made
by certain aviators must feel convinced that it has become easier to shoot down a machine.
I can assure those who hold that opinion that the flying business is becoming more difficult from month to month and
even from week to week. Of course, with the increasing number of aeroplanes one gains increased opportunities for shooting
down one's enemies, but at the same time, the possibility of being shot down one's self increases.
The armament of our enemies is steadily improving and their number is increasing.  When Immelmann shot down his first victim
he had the good fortune to find an opponent who carried not even a machine gun.  Such little innocents one finds nowadays only
at the training ground for beginners.



November 23, 1916

I was extremely proud when, one fine day, I was informed that the airman whom I had brought down on the 23 of November,
was the "English Immelmann" (an ace).
In view of the character of our fight it was clear to me that I had been tackling a flying champion.

One day I was blithely flying to give chase when I noticed 3 Englishmen who also had apparently gone a-hunting.
I noticed that they were ogling me and as I felt much inclination to have a fight I did not want to disappoint them.

I was flying at a lower altitude. Consequently I had to wait until one of my English friends tried to drop on me. After a short while
on the three came sailing along and attempted to tackle me in the rear. After firing five shots he had to stop for I had swerved in
a sharp curve.  The Englishman tried to catch me up in the rear while I tried to get behind him. So we circled round and round like
madmen after one another at an altitude of about 10,000 feet.

First we circled twenty times to the left, and then thirty times to the right. Each tried to get behind and above the other.

Soon I discovered that I was not meeting a beginner. He had not the slightest intention of breaking off the fight. He was traveling
 in a machine which turned beautifully.  However, my own was better at rising than his, and I succeeded at last in getting above and
beyond my English waltzing partner.
When we had got down to about 6,000 feet without having achieved anything in particular, my opponent ought to have discovered that
 it was time for him to take his leave. The wind was favorable to me for it drove us more and more towards the German position.
At last we were above Bapaume, about half a mile behind the German front. The impertinent fellow was full of cheek and when we had
got down to about 3,000 feet,  he merrily waved to me as if he would say, "Well, how do you do?"

The circles which we made around one another were so narrow that their diameter was probably no more than 250 or 300 feet. I had time
 to take a good look at my opponent. I looked down into his carriage and could see every movement of his head. If he had not had his cap on
 I would have noticed what kind of a face he was making.

My Englishman was a good sportsman, but by and by the thing became a little too hot for him. He had to decide whether he would land on
German ground or whether he would fly back to the English lines. Of course he tried the latter, after having endeavored in vain to escape me
by loopings and such like tricks. At that time his first bullets were flying around me, for hitherto neither of us had been able to do any shooting.

When he had come down to about three hundred feet he tried to escape by flying in a zig-zag course during which, as is well known,
 it is difficult for an observer to shoot. That was my most favorable moment. I followed him at an altitude of from 250 feet to 150 feet,
firing all the time. The Englishman could not help falling. But the jamming of my gun nearly robbed me of my success.

My opponent fell, shot through the head, 150 feet behind our line. His machine gun was dug out of the ground and
it ornaments the entrance of my dwelling.



January 3, 1917

Boelcke and Immelmann were given the Ordre Pour le Mérite when they had brought down their eighth aeroplane. I had downed
 twice that number. The question was, what would happen to me? I was very curious. It was rumored that I was to be given
command of a chasing squadron (very soon).

IT occurred to me to have my packing case painted all over in staring red. The result was that everyone got to know my red bird.
My opponents also seemed to have heard of the color transformation.

During a fight on quite a different section of the Front I had the good fortune to shoot into an Allied two-seater which peacefully
photographed the German artillery position. The photographer, had not the time to defend himself. He had to make haste to get
down upon firm ground for his machine began to give suspicious indications of fire. When we airmen notice that phenomenon in an
enemy plane, we say: "He stinks!" 
As it turned out it was really so. When the machine was coming to earth it burst into flames.

I felt some human pity for my opponent and had resolved not to cause him to fall down but merely to compel him to land. I did so particularly
because I had the impression that my opponent was wounded for he did not fire a single shot.

When I had got down to an altitude of about fifteen hundred feet engine trouble compelled me to land without making any curves.
The result was very comical. My enemy with his burning machine landed smoothly while I, his victor, came down next to him in the barbed wire
of our trenches and my machine overturned.

The two Englishmen who were not a little surprised at my collapse, greeted me like sportsmen. As mentioned before, they had not fired a
shot and they could not understand why I had landed so clumsily. They were the first two Englishmen whom I had brought down alive.
Consequently, it gave me particular pleasure to talk to them.  I asked them whether they had previously seen my machine in the air,
and one of them replied, "Oh, yes. I know your machine very well. We call it 'Le Petit Rouge'."

Taken from the Autobiography book "The Red Battle Flyer"
Author: Capt. Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen (1917)

[SAS~GJE52]

Great post Max. Moved to a more appropriate location.

G;

[<Gunny>]

Nice pits and skins Max..

Thank You for all the info great read.....

[max_thehitman]

Great post Max. Moved to a more appropriate location.

G;

Thank you Glynn
I did not actually want to start a new topic on these new aircraft upgrades by showing some screens, but all is cool.

I will post them here instead for those interested in "old wood flying buckets"   
They are actually pretty cool to fly in.

By the way guys and gals, these new (albatros D.II) cockpits will be slightly diferent from the previous version (albatros D.I)
but they are not finished yet, because I keep finding new information and pictures as to their exact factory colors when they
were used on these aircraft.

From my recent investigations and research, it seems that Manfred Richthofen (The Red Baron) was the one responsible
for starting "the fashion craze" of the German pilots painting their aircraft in crazy bright colors.   
He did this for 2 reasons - for Fame and for Fear.
For FAME because he wanted to become known by everyone ("Hey girls look at me, I am a famous ace pilot" ),
and for FEAR , so he would not get shot down from "friendly-fire" and also to make his enemies fear him like a Red devil flying the skies.

Up until the date of late December of 1916 (when Richthofen painted his D.II airplane with a red fuselage) the Jasta groups and
their pilots used unique "personalized Logos and markings" to make their aircraft look diferent in the skies when in a dogfight.
This method was also good to spot quickly which pilot actually scored a victory in the skies. This was very important to them and
when there are 50+ fighters in the skies shooting at everyone - this is important!



The fashion of painting the fuselage in a dark brown color (sometimes red-brown) was just part of a camouflage scheme and many pilots were
already using this method to camouflage their airplanes, because the yellow wood fuselage was too bright in color.
Some pilots used a darker wood varnish color to paint and protect the fuselage instead of using regular paints. This tecnique made many
of the wood fuselages in Albatros fighters have unique color tones - no two aircraft was exactly the same color.
This was not a factory production color scheme , it was done by individuals later on in the field.

On some Albatros fighters green paint was also applied to the dark brown (and reddish brown) color in the fuselage for an even
better camouflage.
This method of painting an airplane fuselage with brown paint also led to a major problem. By the end of 1916 and early 1917
it was found that many German pilots during a chaotic dogfight were actually shooting at their own German fighters , instead of the enemy.
This due to the British Royal Flying Corps having their aircraft painted in various tones and shades of dark browns.
Included into this coloring problem, the "enthusiastic" German ground flak crews were also shooting at any aircraft which was colored brown!
They just wanted to shoot down any airplane flying over them.
This was beggining to be a very dangerous problem for all German pilots 



So one way to make themselves "look diferent in the skies" was to adopt some crazy bright colors. At this point in time, it enters the "idea" of
ace-pilot Richthofen to color his airplane all Red. - In part to make his enemies fear him (and recognize him) and in part for making his
fighter be seen by everyone in case of "friendly fire".   To become Famous was also his reasons.

According to Dan San Abbott (a very good WW1 aviation historian) and also written in some books,
In April 1917, Idflieg (German headquarters) directed the aircraft manufacturers  to stop using red, red brown in the aircraft camouflage and
 to use instead dark green and lilac (*or mauve colors*).  These colors were to be applied to their wing camouflage schemes.
When Idflieg in 1916 directed to aircraft industry to camouflage all front aircraft in a terrain camouflage on the top and side surfaces and
sky blue underneath, the manufacturers used reds such as red oxide,(rust color) to red browns and diferent shades of green.
This was seen on the Albatros D.I  and many other German aircraft built during 1916.

In the interim period some manufacurers stopped using whatever color of brown (red-brown) they were using and finished contracts with
the dark and light shades of green they were using or had in stock.  Many diferent shades of the same color Name was used, because the paints
 were mixed from powder dyes and many times the color was mixed diferently - making it either too light or too dark. This is the problem and
confusion of painting skins in the correct coloring on a German aircraft  too many shades of the same paint type!
Albatros started using lilac - a greyish pink thinged with blue on the first Alb.D.V order. This is pink, not purple.
Pink is white tinted with red. Lilac is pink lightly tinted with blue. The German lilac use was lightly greyed with black.
In fact Albatros painted a one Alb.C.X with dark and light lilac. Mauve and pink are the same, but mauve color is very slightly darker.
It's not purple like eggplant nor it's violet. It is just simply "mauve coloring"  - Do you notice where all this confusion starts ! AAAAHAHAH!

We have to see things in perspective. From close up, both the green/mauve camo and the "Lozenge fabric" camo look garish, but seen from
the air at distances of hundreds of meters, things change.
Tthe function of camo is not as much as concealing it against the ground, something that can only be accomplished when the airplane is landed,
but to break the silhouette and make it harder to spot, and to find which way the airplane is heading. Granted, it takes only a few seconds to gauge
the direction the spotted airplane is following, but in those few seconds both the spotter and spotted travel hundreds of meters which can be
vital for a tactical advantage.

It seems the Germans were onto something with the mauve/lilac coloring, modern experiments in the 1980s by the USA determined that the best
camouflage paint to disguise an airplane in the air and against the ground is a light pink.  The idea was dropped for cost reasons and because it's
 irrelevant in the age of radar.

Anyway,
the "Red Baron" had other thoughts on his mind instead of being a stealth pilot using Radar.













 

[Alfie Noakes]

These are looking superb Max !
Many thanks for your ongoing work 

Cheers

Alfie

[SAS~CirX]

Great posts Max! Thank you.