FOK. Dr.I 425/17

[Drdad]

Beautiful job.
One little detail.
At the time of its last flight, the top wing and bottom wing crosses had not been changed to the narrow cross seen on the rudder and fuselage. They were still the 25 cm, wide crosses that resulted from over painting of the older Maltese crosses. Still a beautiful job however.
Source: Original fabric crosses measured at the Australian War Memorial.

[Dan_San_Abbott]

DRdad:
Tim West has the white borders dipicted correctly. The border were never 250 mm wide, they were 150mm wide. The changes were directed to be completed by 4 April 1918. In all the photos I have seen of Fok.Dr.I 477/17 and Dr.I 425/17 the conversion from the Iron Cross to the balken (beam) croses had be completed. Could you please site your photo source so I may check it out.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

[RED BARON RETURNS]

Dan San,
I'm Sure Glad You Know Your Planes And Marking I Was Almost Ready To Paint My Cross's When I Saw This Post.Now I'm Going To Hold Off On My Model With The Cross.I Think Tim Got It Right On All The Photo's I Have Seen.except For A Model That I Once Saw Had Thicker Cross's On The Wings.
Later Days,
Jep
Red Baron

[Dan_San_Abbott]

RED BARON RETURNS:
I would not rely on a model, unless the model builder can produce evidence the model is correct. I have seen too many models of bright red Fok.Dr.I425/17. To make matters worse there are modeling authorities that still think so, and publish magazines to that effect. In the Imperial War Museum was a large piece of fabric from the upper wing and it is dark blackish red, just like Tim has illustrated. It would have been very simple to verify the color. But no, he still thinks it is vermillion.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

[Tim West]

Wow, thanks all for the kind words It's nice to hear people enjoy my work.

Originally Posted by low'nslow

Tim --What is the scale of this DR-I? Looks fabulous. I'm a complete noob on this forum, joined to see what I can learn, confirm what I think I know, and refute the rest. I'm presently building a 1/5 scale DR-I r/c model, just looking at paint schemes and trying to be accurate in my endeavor. I also have a 1/4 scale D-VII for later on. I plan to both of these planes in Udet's markings.

Peter is right, it's a 3D model created in a program called Maya. I can work in real world units, standard or metric at full scale. I set parameters for units of measure and assign them to a grid system.

Perhaps someday, with enough ram and a JumboTron, I can render full size profiles.

[Tim West]

Originally Posted by Dan_San_Abbott

Tim:
You have the correct shade of red. I am tired of seeing brilliant vermillion versions of this machine. With all the bonifide pieces of fabric from the machine about,you would have thought they would get right a long tme ago. Looks absolutely great!!!
Bluest of skies,
Dan-San

Dan-San,
Why thank your sir

I actually recalled a post you made about cutting yourself and observing the color of the blood that followed....heh, that description stuck in my mind for some strange reason

And you’re right, there are some good examples of what the color should be. I used the cross field pieces as a base to draw from.

Also with the hodgepodge of different red paints that may have been used, it seems unlikely to me that the coverage of color would have been consistent, let alone brilliant.

[Dave_Watts]

Hi,

I might as well throw in my two bits on this.

I've always been curious about the rudder. In the Ferko book there are the three great shots of what is said to be 425/17; by deduction of the "quarter star" blemish on the right side of the fuselage/cockpit fabric. If you look at the rudder it has been over-painted to reduce the white field giving an outline effect to the old patte cross.

Now jump to the well known photo of 425/17 with the guards around it, (you can still see the "quarter star" blemish). Here the rudder is completely white and the cross has been modified to the straght sided balkan style. One would deduce that the white was applied to background area.

Fred Murrin took a very good look at the rudder fabric from the Canadian museum that is attributed to be from MvR's 425/17. To Fred it appeared exactly as depicted in the late photo with the straght cross. The odd thing is he could not find any sign in the least that there was an undercoating of any paint in the field area around the cross. I will have to ask him if there was any sign of the old patte cross at all.

From our discussions he thinks MvR had the rudder replaced at a later time. He said that he has made a spare rudder for his full scale replica as his rudder has taken a beating.

Any thoughts on this one?

Best,
Dave W.

[Tim West]

Heya,

I have not seen this rudder sample.....so my comments are limited.

Based on photos in Irmies book , if you look closely at photo 116 , near the bottom, you can see what appears to be highlights left by the white border of the old cross. I would very much like to see a better copy of this photo for sure as its hard to be sure with the copy in the book.

Also looking at the other cross fields, you can see the underlying crosses rather clearly, so unless the rudder was replaced as mentioned, then why would the rudder be any different?

Anyhow, any photos of this rudder linen?

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Dave Watts:
I could kiss you! The reason Fred could not find any red paint on the rudder, was because the rudder was never painted red on Fok.DR.I 425/17!
Ray Rimmell said the blemish in the fabric of the all red Fok.DR.I in front of the Bessoneau hangar at Lechelle Airfield and on other photos and concluded all these photographs were of Fok.Dr.I 425/17. The fact is the only machine that had the red rudder was Fok.DR.I 477/17! I have contented that all the photographs of the machine with the blemish on the side under the cockpit is Fok.DR.I 477/17! Further their is no record of Fok.DR.I 425/17 until 19 April 1918 and the only photographs are those taken at Bertangles Airfield after MvR was shot down!
Blue skies,
Dan

Originally Posted by PeterL

It's worse than that mate. It's not a physical model but an electronic one; a rendition. As a modeler I find it kind of scary, although greatly to be admired.

You're s***in' me, right? This is VIRTUAL? That is scary. Is this like making an architectural plan and then making the real thing, or "just" a form of computer art? Impressive, at any rate.