VzFlgMstr Franz Mayer's MFJ III D VII (OAW)

[GPCharlwood]

Hi all (and especially Greg VanWyngarden if you are out there).

I have the Osprey title Fokker D VII aces Part 2 and am interested in the aircraft profile 11 (for those who also have it). The caption for this profile states that the colours were based on a combat report by Mayer describing it as yellow nosed with black stripes on white. Sounds definitive, but in the photo on page 24 showing this machine the 'black' of the stripes is much darker than the black of the Balkankreuz overlaying them. Could the stripes be a different colour? Could the colour have been changed between the photo and the combat report (or vice versa)? If so what would your best educated guess be as to the colour of the underlying stripes in the photo? If not what would cause black to show up as two very different greys on black and white film? :wacko:

PS love the Osprey books on D VII aces part 1 and the two JGs.

[Dan_San_Abbott]

GPCharlwood:
I have in my fabric collection, a large piece of fuselage fuselage fabric from Fok.D.VII (OAW) 4409/18. It was removed from this machine that was stored in the dirigible hangar at Trier. (Treves). It includes the fuselage cross. What is really neat, it has a patched bullet hole on the cross. Unlike what we sometimes see, there is no cockade painted on the patch, the patch is swabbed over with mauve paint! Really crude!. Anyhow the black lacquer on the cross has a matt finish. The shade of the black is about the color of coal. It is not black-black, but a very dark shade of grey. The black is further muted with a coat of varnish, that discolors the white borders of the cross.
In regard to Vzflgmstr. Franz Mayer's Fok.D.VII (OAW) 4499/18, ( same batch) the black diagonals were a black-black.
Blue skies,
Dan-San
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