Here is a bit of fun showing the bird under construction. The white primer on the wing structure was for protection. This was built as a static display and does not fly.]

Historian Achim Engels (of Fokker Team Schoerndorf fame) comments next.

". . .Those of you who are a little bit familiar with the original design of the plane will quickly see that there are many descrepancies between the original Pfalz D.III and this dummy repro.

But it is obviously that the staff at PFW did not intent to come up with a correct Repro of that plane. It also appears to be obvious that the budget provided by the company for this projekt was limited as well.

Taking these facts into consideration the dummy is a very good replication of the outer shape of this most elegant airplane.

The design of the structure was made by Hans-Jürgen Vogt and Peter Müller. They drew up plans at home after hours. The build itself was carried out at the apprentice workshop.

The cross is indeed positioned too far below and Hans-Jürgen Vogt told me that it will be repainted later.

Concerning the choice of the body color he said, that there was no source about the actual color used available. The Company requested a paint manufacturer with a research in their archive files and they came up with an aviation paint called "Graualuminium" (gray aluminum). The fact that it appears that dark could be attributed to the wheather on the day the photograph was taken.

Hans-Jürgen Vogt sent me some other images which I have posted above. It looks quite good in sunny daylight. He also pointed out that the original colore tone could not have been as light as white since you can see the cross borders on historic photographs quite well.

One should photograph the dummy repro with contemporary photographic methods to see how it appears then.

Enjoy! Achim"

In this image the rudder cross is now repositioned correctly.

From another historian;
". . .Concerning the (lack of) guns and their access ports: I want to point out, that the first produced DIII’s did not bury any guns. Please refer the Windsock Data File #107 on page 8 picture 12 and 14 and the related explanation regarding the DIII 1366/17.

The DIII replica of the PFW ( the replica above) is marked with 1362/17, earlier than the pictured DIII in the Date File #107. The rectangular gun access panels only appeared on aeroplanes of the second production batch, from DIII 4000-4190/17.

These informations are based on investigations on all accessable pictures of the Windsock Data Files #7 and #107. . ."

And finally from Aaron Weaver again;
". . .Another reality in current Germany is not putting any armament on aircraft. On the D.VII in the Deutsches Museum for example... defanged. Perhaps this is also the reason Herr Vogt, usw have not put these on the replica. Maybe it was a company requirement.

Perhaps that is the reason they didn't on the replica... Political correctness rather than accuracy."