First titled "The Fliegertruppe's first real set."

As promised a bit of fun concerning the Gavia Albatros D.I (That is actually an Eduard kit with new struts.) Anyone interested in the Albatros fighters or Bloody April 1917 or the early mounts of the Fliegertruppe''s Aces will want this kit. Though a Gavia release it is only available on the Eduard site or through Eduard outlets.

Link to Item

If you have comments or questions please post them here. Please remember to mention that you heard about these products in review, here at Aeroscale's Early Aviation forum.

Thanks!

I have begun building this kit and will probably do Prince Karl Freirich's machine.

Here is the general idea. Is to do one without the header tank. But the smaller tank infront of the #1 cylinder.

Now does anyone know how many top wing postions the D.I & D.II could be set at?

Stephen, in the Windsock Albatros Special file it shows 5 sets of holes in the top of th trestle so I would guess.........5 Oddly though the DI/DII data file doesnt show this.


Keith

Excellent Keith! 5 holes is correct that means that the top wing could be moved forward a maximum approximately 3.5 inches from its top dead center.

Looks like Black Dog Resins have an upgrade set for the Alb. D.I & II.



http://www.blackdog.cz/

Here are afew references I will use.
"Aviation Awards of Imperial Germany and the men who earned them" by Neal O' Connor. Privately published Vol. 1-6. Volume 7 is published by Schiffer.
Albatros Aces Parts 1 & 2 by Greg VanWyngarden Osprey pub. 2000 & 2007.
Albatros Scouts Described, by Chas Schaedel, 1971 Kookaburra Tech. Pub.
Albatros Fighters Datafile Special by Ray Rimell, 1991 Albatros Pub. Ltd.
German Fighter Units 1914 - May 1917 by Alex Imrie. Osprey Air war 13, 1978 & 1993.
Lafayette Foundation Archive. Denver CO. USA.
Spandau Machine Gun by David Watts,1998 WWI Aero.

I have begun cutting away on this kit as well. There has been some talk about the internal differences of the Alb. D.I, D.II & D.III. We will discuss this here as we progress. It is still my intention to do this as Prinz Freidrich Karl of Prussia's machine.

Here is an older thread on these aircraft types.
Click Here.

I remember back to 2000 at the IPMS Nats in Dallas TX. The display Eduard presented was some of their kits on black disply placards. These were half build as the left or right half of the completed kit was displayed attached to the placard. I noticed the fine wood simulations even then. When I asked how was this done I was told. Artists pencils. Here is an image of their D.II kit with the simulated grain applied. From eduard's website.

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Note: Eduard altered their website in Sept. 2011 and the images are no longer available.

The Albatros D.I built by Johannistahl used the typical dark green, light or Brunswick green and the Venetian red brown.

The sprues are being prepped now. The surprise here is that I will build two 1:48 kits at the same time. The Gavia Alb. D.I and the Eduard D.II.

Ok the work has begun and images will get posted later in the AM . So far the wings, and tail units have their lt. blue undersurfaces. The belly sections on the lower wings have their plywood surfaces. Fuselage halves have their plywood surfaces and basic internal kit parts added. I have also installed one fuel cell. Wheels have their colours. Next the internal surface of the metal cowlings and some wiring will be represented.

Here we go.

Hi Stephen

The effect is excellent. At first glance I assumed they must be decals. I used a thin brown artist's felt pen once to replicate a Czech 1930s wooden propeller that had very tight laminations that I found difficult to paint, but it never occured to me to try the brown pencils I had in the same drawer! This is such a simple idea, I'll have to give the technique a try one day - but I bet it takes practice to get such a good result as shown here.

All the best

Rowan

This project is still underway and I have images I can post. But it will have to wait for a couple of days while we shift gears on the forum.

Almost ready to close up these fuselages. Images to follow. My Black Dog conv/detail sets are on their way.

For the Alb. D.I you have to fill & replot the holes for the Cabane trestle. Do not go by the Gavia instructions.

A bit of Interesting trivia (based on the D.I protptype photos) on 386/16. If you look closely at the photos of Boelke's 34th kill ( In WS datafile 100 and in the Schiffer book) you will see that the pipe running back from the front outlet of the engine is about where the bottom of the ear header tank is (Next to the roccker arms on the left side of the engine) and if you follow the lines or do some geometric projections(like I did) and look at the bottom picture of Bohme's bird on page 20 of the Schiffer book. You will see that the Plumbing in question on 386/16 and Bohme's 916/16 blocks the pilot's view forward. Remember this if you are modeling these aircraft.

Enjoy
Captn Tommy

Also this particular machine ( and a few others) did not have the typical header tank on top of the cylinders. It was located infront of the #1 cylinder with most of it below the cowling.

Good call missed that.

Captn Tommy

Prinz Friedrich Karl von Preußen. (ß symbol = ss in German, not capital B) Albatros D. I was brought down by Lt. Pickthorn of No 32 Sq RFC on March 21 1917. His Albatros D I shows a skull and crossed bones which he took from the insignia of the Leib-Husaren-Regiment. There is a well known photo of his captured machine , published in the Albatros Fighters, the Datafile Special, page 6.

The light green description of the Prince's D.I comes from the letters of Adolf von Tutschek, who had plenty of opportunity to see this machine up close. I quote from the 1918 edition of Tutschek's letters, "Sturme und Luftsiege":

"Es was am 21. Maerz, 1917...Als ich mich umblickte, sah ich ploetzlich von links seitwaerts ein fremdes Flugzeug auf uns zustreben. Ich erkannte es bald als den gruenen Albatros des Prinzen Friedrich Karl...Auf beide Seiten des Flugzeuges und auf die Propellerhaube hatte er als Abzeichen einen grossen Totenkopf malen lassen."

Rough translation: "As I glanced backward I suddenly spied a strange aircraft to the left, coming toward us. I quickly recognized the green Albatros of Prince Friedrich Karl...He had painted a large death's head on both sides on both sides of the fuselage and also on the propeller spinner."

The Totenkopf on the spinner is something that is not visible on any of the photos of this machine; obviously, it wouldn't have been recognizable during flight ! Personally I think the skull & crossbones was on a black square field on the fuselage, not red. It is shown as black in Imrie's "German Fighter Units 1914-1917". This black/white pattern would also be in keeping with the Prince of Prussia, after all, and also appropriate given its origin as a cap badge of the Leib-Husaren Regiment - I think this cap badge originally appeared on a black cap.

Also mentioned in von Tutschek's piece is that the aircraft was a Jasta 2 machine and not from KG.1. Prinz Friedrich Karl flew it when he went on sorties with Jasta 2. He was normally deputy commander of the Flieger Abteilung FA(A)258. At first this machine carried the initials "Co" and follow the early Jasta 2 marking practice of putting the first two letters of the pilot's last name on the fuselage. There are several photos of aircraft marked like this, the most well known being that of Günther with the "Gu" or Büttner with the "Bu" or Reiman's machine with the Re. This machine was first flown by Ltn. Dieter Colin and later passed on to the Prinz (as his personal "hack") when Jasta 2 began re-equipping with Albatros D.II aircraft.

Biography
Prince Friedrich Karl von Preußen was born in Schloss Klein-Glienicke, Potsdam/Berlin. He was the son of Prince Friedrich Leopold of Prussia (1865–1931) and Princess Louise Sophie of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (1866–1952) and a grandson of Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia.

He was part of the German team, which was able to win a bronze medal in the equestrian team jumping event. His horse during the 1912 Olympic competition was "Gibson Boy".

He fought in World War I between 1914 and 1917. He was deputy commander of FA(A)258, but flew patrols in a single seat fighter with Jasta Boelcke whenever possible. During one such patrol on March 21, 1917 he was forced to land with a bullet in his engine and a slight wound to his foot. He landed his Albatros aircraft in no-man's land, but while running towards his own lines he was severely wounded in the back by Australian troops. He was taken POW where he died from his injuries on April 6, 1917 at Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray. As a dying declaration he wrote a letter to his family saying that he was humanely treated in the hospital.

Prince Tassilo Wilhelm Humbert Leopold Friedrich Karl of Prussia

Here the Gavia D.I & Eduard D.II continue.

Greetings all;

I have been drilling out some pilot holes for the rigging, cabane trestle and next the guns, their details, radiators and the header tank infront of #1 cylinder. I will usually do the rigging between the wings first. Next I will add the tail control cables and finally add the landing gear with its stay wires. Then the laminates in the propeller.

I'll post some images here later tonight but lets talk about the backdating conversion from the Eduard D.II to the Gavia D.I. Going from the pair of "N" cabane struts to the twin inverted Vee cabane trestle is not too difficult. The plastic Gavia trestle part is subject to bending and or breaking and the instructions are not particularly helpful with the placement on the upper cowling / forward deck area. My best source on this is the Albatros Ltd. Datafile #100 on the Alb. D.I - II.
My choice here for the D.I is representative of one of the early production machines with the water header tank infront of the #1 cylinder. As mentioned earlier in this thread most of it is below the cowling along with the water plumbing.

Attach the Spandau Maxim guns now. These should be thoroughly set before you continue.


In placing the trestle start with the back legs on the upper deck edges near the gun butts. The front legs should come down between the #5 & #6 cylinders. You will have to cut ot a small inset for the legs to sit evenly and have an anchor.

Early on while prepping the conversion by filling the D.II locator holes. I cut a slight trough in the underside of the upper wing at its centerline. Then I drilled a small hole in the trough at front near the leading edge of the top wing to take the small locator tab on the Gavia part.

In painting the fuselage I thought here I might explain some colour variations I used. The fuselage was done with a translucent covering of the dirty version of the "light Brunswick green". I wanted some of the tan plastic to represent the wood fuselage. Now the cowling got a double coat of the same green as it would have a grey coat underneath.

The original aircraft had at least two different pilots assigned to it and the reason for the over coating was to keep the reflectant shine off its surfaces. We don't know to what extent the aircraft components were original to the airframe and all the images we have of this airframe note that it is pretty uniform in its appearance.

In placing the ear radiators you will note that the upper cowling edges left and right are slightly off. the pilot's left being marginally higher than the one on the pilot's right. so to match them so they look even from the front view you will need to use a small straightedge held across the front face of the cowling ring. The drawing is from a 1974 issue of Cross & Cockade Intl. compare it to current info.