Calling Dan-San Abbott

[rfindley]

Greetings Dan-San;

You are listed as the reference man on this sheet so I figured you were the one to ask. Wihelm Kuhne a/c is listed as an Albatros built bird. However the sheet doesn't specify the type for Walter Blume and Ltn. Veltejn's a/c. Were they Fokker (eraly/late), OAW or Albatros built?

Also, SS instructions have me confussed on Walter Blume's a/c. It would appear that the top of the upper wing is white and has lozenge on the bottom. The lower wing woulld appear to have lozenge on upper and lower surfaces. My question is what does "white on the sides of upper and lower wings" mean???

Thanking you in advance (TIA)

Rick

Thanks Dan-San. I appreciate your help.
Rick

[Dan_San_Abbott]

RFindley:
Ltn.Walter Blume was the Jastaführer of Jasta 9. the Jasta markings were white upper surface of the upper wing, white noses , black fuselage, axle wing, and wheel covers, black tailplane with two white stripes, white fin and rudder and all struts are white.
Individual markings were painted aft of the cockpit in white initials, bands
Ltn. Walter Blume has an angular stylized B in white on both sides of the fuselage and the covers in 3 black stripes with white in between the black stripes, all in equal widths. The under surface of the top wing and both sides of the bottom were covered with 4 color printed fabric. It was a Fokker built machine in the serial number range of D.500 to 526/18. (early)
Ltn. Josef Veltjens Fok.D.VII is Fokker built and in the serial number range of D.451-499/18. (Early) Both of these machines are from the first order.
Ltn. Wilhelm Kühne's Fok.D.VII(Alb) is from the first order to Albatros in the serial range of D.727 to 926/18.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

Dan San,

How were these paints/colors applied to the a/c ? Were they sprayed on with air? or brushed on ? It was suggested in another thread/post in the Forum that they were sprayed on. But after watching the History Ch on the Zepplin, and watching the crews "brush, big brushs, on the paint, I find it very hard to believe WWI paint was "sprayed".

And was this paint applied over the camo fabric?

[JoernL]

Dan-San,

one minor correction here, Blume´s D.VII was an O.A.W.-built machine, from their second production batch.
Osprey´s new D.VII aces Vol. 2 has an interesting photo of this particular plane, provided to Greg by the great Alex Imrie, seen on page 65 of this higly-recommended publication.
Also, very good colour profiles of this intersting plane are included in the new book.

Best regards,

Joern

Dan San, You did not reply to my post.

[StephenLawson]

Greetings all; Courtesy Greg VanWyngarden ya'll

[StephenLawson]

Again Courtesy of Greg VanWyngarden, '...note The Jasta 9 Blume jpg shows Blume after scoring the 100th victory of Jasta 9, and on the original print (from Alex Imrie) you can see that the leading 1/2 of the top wing was painted white. You can see the tip of the propeller sticking up beyond the white portion.

The other one shows this same D.VII after it fell into French hands, I suspect after the war - Blume certainly was never taken PoW. It was picked to pieces by souvenir hunters, but it does show what appears to be a white panel on the underside of the bottom wing...'

[rfindley]

Stephen

on the original print (from Alex Imrie) you can see that the leading 1/2 of the top wing was painted white.

So rather than an all-white upper surface to the top wing you only have the leading edge back to about half the wing in white and the rest would be camo?

I can also see the white panel on the under side of the bottom wing. Any idea if this was matched on the opposite wing? It appears to be a complete rectangle rather than a single white bar across both bottom wings.


Rick

[Gregvan]

Hi Rick,

In "Fokker D.VII Aces of WWI, Part 2" we interpeted the top wing as painted about 60 % white on the top surface only. The trailing edge of the white section was a line conecting the trailing white borders of the horizontal arms of the national insignia on both wing tips. We extended this white out to the wing tips on both ends. Is that clear as mud?? When he answered a letter by Bill Puglisi about 1960, Blume said the wings were painted white, which is an obvious (but understandable) over-simplification.On the original print from Alex, you CAN see that the wing was only partially painted white.

On the bottom of the bottom wing, we extended the white panel that you can see from wing tip to wing tip. I'm not saying that's 100% confirmed how it was, but that was our best estimate using the available data. The wing markings look odd, but kind of interesting.

Also note that the tailplane and elevators were white, and possibly a diagonally demarcated section of the fuselage beneath the tailplane was white as well.

Thanks for posting the images, Stephen.

Greg VanWyngarden

[rfindley]

:P Dan-San Stephen & Greg - Thanks to you all for the info.

Looks like there are at least two D.VII's for Ltn. Blume - the Fokker built one as shown on the SuperScale sheet - White stylized "B" all-white top wing, black tail plane with white stripes and this OAW machine shown in the photos: 60% white top white, black outlined white "B" with white fuselage cross and all-white tailplane and rudder.

Between Roden and Eduard we should get Fokker, OAW & Albatros made D.VII's with enough schemes for all of them.

I will have to check out the Ospray books.

Thanks guys

Rick

Those struts and wheel covers.....white or gray? Any one with a practiced eye care to guess?