Landships II

Peter T · General

Weimar Republic

d_fernetti · Hero

This is a sad picture indeed...
The flag you see is probably a personal motif, applied to the pilot or the observer. If you had any info on the crew of this aircraft, or the Jasta to which it belonged, you may have a clue if the flag was from the hometown of the pilot or the origin of the squadron. This way, it's very difficult to be certain about the colours or the meaning of the marking.
One thing to point out is that one of the airframes has a large numeral ona white (?) field, somethig that was usually found in training squadrons. The airframes here are mostly Albatros J types for ground strafing, and the one you picked out seems to be a LVG of some sort.
Perhaps you can search for any heraldic design from Germany that has about the same shape.
D.

Peter T · General

Thank you very much for your response, Diego

I did not knew, that these were Albatros J types. Very interresting aircraft. May be you have seen, that this flag is painted on most of the aircrafts and it seems to appear from time to time in contemporary pictures, i.e the painting of Franz Radiziwill.

Here you can see a red/blue flag hanging out of a window. First I thought, it could be the colours of Oldenburg, a district in northern Germany. But why should they paint that flag on these fighters?

PT

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ivstefano · Captain

It was a ground attack aircraft and it is a rare one!http://www.aviastar.org/air/germany/albatros_i1.phphttp://www.taylormademiniatures.com/id106.htmhttp://avia-hobby.ru/model/ChorMod/ChorMod_1.html

The flag may be the unit insignia as well. As all the rudders are white your aircraft may belong to the same unit. (they probably have a band around the fuselage in some color as well?) Some units of the Imperial Air force were entirely Bavarian, so why not an Oldenburg unit? �

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There is another chance that the planes are marked in the same manner before they were destructed (?)

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I am sorry, I think that I am an expert on WW1 aces, but for this machine I cant help you

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Yvan

d_fernetti · Hero

Searching at my own kit collection I have one of those Albatros J, it's a vacform by the brand Xtravac. They were issued in 1918 to concentrate the airpower on trenches, backing the upcoming great offensive of 1918. I may look further to see from where the ground strafing squadrons came from, probably is an unit marking of some town or regiment. The greek cross inscribed on a field was a common heraldic design and you will find several examples only about German towns or kingdoms.
Given that the most common film used at the time was orthochromatic, which rendered "warm" colours as dark (i.e. red, , orange, etc.) and "cool" colours as light (i.e. blue, violet, etc.) the colours of the banners in the airplanes probably don't match those on the painting, since the red cross may have shown darker than the field around it.
I shall look for these airplanes in Bob Pearson's CD of WW1 aircraft profiles, he has more than a thousand of different types and nations, and probably has rendered it with some educated guess.
In the end, you can't be certain about most of the colours of WW1 airplanes, and the discussion has filled many a forum page in the past few years.

Peter T · General

Thank you both for your geat help. Now that I know that this is an Albatros J Schlachtflugzeug I will try to place the same question at The Aerodrom Forum.

PT

d_fernetti · Hero

On the WW1 modeling list someone (whose opinion I trust) told me that these "flags" could be armistice markings applied after 11/11/18. He'll find out more later about colours and other specs.

Date: Jan 18, 2008

Yvan, I think the rudders look white because they have been stripped of their fabric - you can see the ribs. If the fabric was there you should be able to see the cross on the rudder.
Steve

Peter T · General

I recently found theaerodrome forum and there I got the following answer from Colin A Owers:
The Norwegian Flag was applied to many fuselages in an attempt to circumvent the Allies Armistice/Treaty provisions, but didn't work. The photographs usually show fuselages stacked up for burning.

PT

d_fernetti · Hero

Well there you have! You can't do no better than having an answer from Mr. Owers himself! Now, the Norwegian flag is a blue cross imposed on a red field, with white lines separating the two colours... the blue, depending on the hue and lighting conditions, may have shown very pale in orthochromatic film, and he red, rather dark. This matches the image you have attached to your post! I'd go with that!

-- Edited by d_fernetti at 00:03, 2008-01-20