Oh yeah! The purple and mid green.

Nils

Nils, you are absolutely correct!!!

Now let us continue on the subject of rib tapes. In normal doping practice the tapes were doped on after the first brush coat. Then they were sewn in place as there were cotton battens nailed to the wood rib caps before the wing was covered in the fabric.

Concerning German aircraft:
There are four types known to have been used from the factory.
1. Clear Doped linen tapes were used on various two & single seat. LFG Roland is one of these.
2. Lt. Blue or lozenge tapes were used ONLY ON OAW built machines.
3. Salmon pink or lozenge tapes were used by Albatros, Johannistahl.
4. Fokker only used cut strips of the lozenge fabric.

Of note All aircraft allied or central powers used rib tapes on fabric covered wings. Most of the time they are clear doped linen that are overpainted a camouflage colour of the wing surface.

Early in the war several companies on both sides of the war used wooden battens on the covered ribs of wings. Pfalz and Fokker E. series are just two of these examples.

The "rib tape" was one colour type. If they took 5 colur upper surface material it was used in one piece around the entire wing rib upper and lower surface. Yes, this means that on the under surface you would see the dark 5 colour upper surface material rib tape. I have seen many good examples of this. It would not make sense to cut strips of upper and lower surface material and sew them together at their endes so the strips would match their backgrounds not in a factory attempting to meet production deadlines.

For the latest in high fashion see:

https://aeroscale.kitmaker.net/forums/88744&page=1#top

Now to continue.

The image presented in this post is an actual section of WWI German 5 colour lozenge from the underside of the lower wing of a Fokker D.VII from 1918. Several things to note;

A. The seam shows the neigbouring panels are not flipped 180 degrees to each other. Always check your references.

B. The lozenge rib tapes are cut from upper surface coloured bolts. Remember I noted they were one piece around the wing rib profiles.

C. The space of the rib tapes tells us that it infact came from a Fokker D.VII lower wing. So the historical text concening its provinance is correct.

D. Note the placement of the cross on the covering surface and its location in relationship to the ribs.

Here is a 1/48 DML Fokker D.VII covered in the "old' Aeroscale lozenge (Not as accurate as the Eagle Strike sets.) Done in the early 1997 -2000. With the green and mauve cowling panels, all white vertical stabilizer, locations of the crosses and the lt. blue rib tapes you can deduce that it was made to look like a factory fresh OAW built machine. Note the seam locations.


Now take a moment and get up from your monitor and stand back say 12 feet from your computer. Think about the overall impression you get when you look at the model. Details become indistinct.

Can anyone tell me why there are no rib tapes on the tail unit?

Greetings all;

Next we will look at overall schemes. Since Brad Cancian was kind enough to add some images in the texturing thread and giving you all a chance to review what we have goine through here. Here from the Eduard Combo thread...



Admittingly this model is "dirtier and more worn" than I usually like to do. But It is slated to be included in an end of war diorama in British hands. Texturing was done on the lozenge decal except for the rib tapes.

From the Special Hobby Pfalz D.XII review. This uses the Eagle Strike 5 colour lozenge with the same type rib tapes. Almost no texturing done here.

Here you go matey..... Extra Cold Guinness and your Johnnie Walker Black Label....
Now, I know that I asked earlier about if there were any winter Lozenge....
Why didn't they make any? Was these other Lozenge camouflage efficient enough? There must have been some fighting over snow. I just thought that they'd stick out more over a white landscape than a proper winter version....
SUPER thread O' Enlighted One!!

PS. Have you ever thought about trying to do a winter Lozenge on any of your superb models??

Here is the Eduard Fokker D.VII from the Spotted Nosed Thoroughbred review. Here the over all Eagle Strike 4 colour lozenge is textured.

Here from the same review as above. The Eagle Strike 5 colour also receives an over all texturing including the lt. blue rib tapes.

I've seen your latest investment O' Shady One.....

Seem to me that this "model" is slightly larger than 1/48, hmmmmm?

Oooohhhh, a boilermaker!




It was on Nov.19...




Lozenge camouflage had three distinct advantages.
1. The top surface colours were difficult to be seen against ground terrain.
2. The undersurface colours could easily match extreme evening or morning sky colours. Pinks, mauves and blues being prominant.
3. Optically it took enemy pilots a longer time to decide whether an aircraft was coming or going.

To your question; Caveat!!! This just my opinion .
Why didn't they make winter lozenge? Possibly because winter flying was usually relegated to two seater machines? Some of them were overall white or sky blue. In central Europe snow only stays on the ground about 3 months. It wouldn't make sense to recover an airframe or keep adding layers of paint. Resources got pretty tight toward the end of the war. Single-seaters were usually grounded more often or flew less during the winter months. Germany was thoroughly blockaded.

Yes, its true the Lafayette Foundation is discussing its purchase.

Is it me, or isn't there rigging installed on that a/c??

Hunter Cottage; Yes its there. Just not very clear in the low res scan.

Greetings all here is a bit of fun with a full sized modern replica Fokker D.VII in 5 colour lozenge.

Here is another modern replica in five colour lozenge and markings for the Cmdr of Jasta 33.


The first image of the D.VII with the white nose and tail, is closer to the original fabric in colour of the lozenges.

Greetings all;

I have tried to cover the basics of lozenge application. The printed cotton fabric we have come to know as Vierfarbiger (4 colour) Flugzeugstoff and Fünffarbiger (5 colour) Flugzeugstoff are the most common applications. The other areas we could cover are the printed Dreifarbiger (3 colour) Flugzeugstoff, Naval hex lozenge and the painted "lozenge" and "splinter" camouflages seen on the Gotha and Staaken Bombers. But there will have to be some interest inthose areas for me to continue there.

The Eagle Strike 4 & 5 colour lozenge is a little hard to get hold of so when you can do so! The Eduard can be used but a dark wash or streaked application is recommended. There are others out there but due to various colour problems I can't recommend them to a large degree. There are several companies that offer masks for you to airbrush the colours on a given surface.

Before we move on are there any questions concerning the subject at hand?

Greetings all;
I had a PM today from MerlinV.





Very cool Hugh.
You are correct! Rib tapes are added to wood based framing. The Early Bird Air Campaign begins Jan 3. Yes feel free to join the membership.
Stephen

Greetings all;
While we have looked at the "normal" side of lozenge camouflage here is a bit of a review from the Fokker Royal thread.

Here we see the interior of the replica Fokker D.VII posted above (Nickchen IV) Nicky #4 . Note on the right side that you can see the shadow of the lettering painted on the outside of the fuselage. Also the interior of the fabric is lighter as the dye did not penetrate completely through. This is per the original fabric manufacture in 1917 - 1918.

Jackflash:
In your post of 25 January you attributed Halbstadter Flugzeug Werke as the originator of the printed fabric, that is not correct. The five color printed fabric was designed by a Leutnant working at the Inspektion der Fliegertruppe, (Idflieg). The patent bore the Leutant's name as the inventor and the patent was issued to Idflieg. In this way, Idflieg controlled the construction of the linen fabric and colored dyes thereby maintaining control and consistancy of the colors. Idflieg contracted Neue Augburger Kattun Fabrik to weave, finish and print the linen fabric.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

Hey Dan - San, I joined: January 25, 2004 First the post is quoted here (in bold) then below the reason in normal script.

Posted: Monday, November 13, 2006 - 06:10 PM MST
Greetings all;
I have been up burning the midnight oil on several projects. The following treatise will do for a bit of help in the application of German WWI Lozenge camouflage. There were several types but I will be discussing their applications to model kit airframes. First a bit of history.

Halberstädter Flugzeug Werke textile mills was the company that developed and printed the Flugzeugstoff (lozenge camouflage ) with the four colour layout...

Our friend "Acer" was the one that said;
"...Fokker was not involved in the production ... nor was it the Neue Augsburger Kattunfabrik. Vierfarbiger Flugzeugstoff was much cheaper in production, because the expensive color dye technology of the NAK was not used...at the moment it is unknown wether the German aircraft industry could order the new design of Flugzeugstoff directly or was it alloted by Idflieg. It is said that the Halberstädter Flugzeug Werke (Signum: H.F.W., Military: Halb.) got one of the first charges, but obviously it was first used on single seaters like the Fokker-Werke produced. For this writer the printer of the marine version is not known yet..."

It is possible that Halberstadter may have been one of the first companies to develop the uses of the Vierfarbiger (5 colour) Flugzeugstoff (lozenge.) Though I don't doubt idflieg worked with a textile mill in the development.

To everyone; Dan-San is most knowlegable in these matters and anything he can add to help keep me honest is a plus to us all.

Understanding that the monitors we use may give each and every viewer here a different series of colours to represent a standard colour. I was asked recently here about the tonal difference in the Eagle Strike vs the Eduard 4 colour. The Eagle Strike is shown infront of the Eduard. Please remember the Eduard had two colours assigned to the wrong lozenge sets. But still over all with some texturing the effect can be near to the Eagle Strike. Again note the Pentagonal ( 5 sided) lozenge near the bottom of the image in both sets. In the beginning of this thread I identified this as a "Key Lozenge" to give us a starting point.

Jack Flash:
First of all, I had confused four color with five color fabric. I should have payed more attention. Another case of Foot in the mouth desease.
I have a problem with Halberstadt Flugzeug Werke as the inventor/designer. If they were the inventor/designer, they certainly would have used it on the aircraft they built, either their own designs or the license built machines. I do not know of a single Halberstadt built aircraft covered with four color fabric. The Halb. Cl.II, Cl.IV and the C.V were all covered with five color fabric. To my knowledge, the first to use four color fabric on the initial Idflieg order to Fokker Flugzeugwerke intermitantly from Fok.D.VII 227/18 to 526/18. The secong manufacturer was LFG Roland on the Rol.D.VIa 1200/18 to 1249/18. I have covered this subject in detail in Schlachtflieger!.
I would be most interested in Acer's source data??
Blue skies,
Dan-San
P.S. While I cannot prove it, I still think it was a Anthony Fokker creation!