I want to do the model after it was painted Jasta 11 red, but I first need to know what was the previous color scheme and how much of it was retained.
The description is "yellow with a black tail" , the yellow being assumed to be the varnished wooden fuselage, and in the photot can be seen the black covers not only the tail but a good portion of the rear fuselage as well.
But here are the oddities:
1) In the tail fin there's a horizontal stripe of grey, I assume is a damage on the negative or the print or whatever, but it's too regular., could it be a stripe of another color?
2) The fuselage wing root fairings. They seem to be overpainted in a dark color while all the rest of the metal pàrts seem to be in the standard light grey
I toyed with the idea that the fuselage was indeed painted yellow and that's why it looks darker, and the fairings being a smooth reflective surface look darker still... but considering the engine cowling is in grey, that doesn't hold water.... simpler explanation is the right one. Just varnished plywood and the dark color is just the result of shadow and film exposure and printing and what not.
3) The nose. There's a dark narrow band on it, wich I assume is black, just as the wheelcovers but the rest of the nose and the spinner seem to be painted in another color darker than the light gray of cowling and struts.
No idea of what it could be, but given the trend in Jasta 11 of using regimental facing colors as a distinctive col or... I would guess it has something to do with Schäfer regiment before joining the air service. I am no expert in German uniforms and I am too lazy to start going through Osprey books on the German Army but I find Schäfer's small soft cap and dark coat with double rows of buttons quite noteworthy, he almost has a "naval" look furthermore , in his photo in the Aerodrome
http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/germany/schafer2.php
he has dark collar patches in his tunic, I guess they were black and that's why Schäfer picked that color for his Albatros, I have no idea, but I suppose somebody can figure out what his regiment or arm of service was. Engineers, perhaps?
Oh wait, that doesn't give us any clues as to the spinner color...perhaps if we knew his unit some other color like regimental facings or whatever would be a likely candidate.
Finally, I am assuming that given the descriptions, and the difficulty of overpainting black with red, this same machine conserved this scheme, with the rest of the fuselage , cowling and struts being painted red. I guess wheel covers would be left in black... and the nose... given Voss and Allmenröder examples, I think it was left in its original color.. whatever it was.
