In the book "Fokker Fighters of World War One" by Alex Imrie (Vintage
Warbirds No 6), published by Arms and Armour Press (I find I have to
give all my references now - no more operating from memory), I found
a picture of another wood fuselage D.VII.
Picture No. 80, page 44; the caption reads:
"To guard against possible shortages of steel tubing, three
experimental Fokker D.VIIs with wooden fuselages were built, two by
Fokker and one (the example shown here) by Albatros-Gesellschaft fu"r
Flugzeugunternehmungen mbH at Johannistahl near Berlin. In the
event, steel tube remained available and there was no need to resort
to wood for the fuselages of production aircraft."
The serial number is 541/18 (Alb), and I can't tell if the wings and
horizontal tail surfaces were covered in lozenge - naval or
otherwise. However, the fuselage is painted interestingly. The
picture is a complete side shot - meaning that the camera was at 45
degrees to the port fueslage side - and you can make out all fuselage
details. It *appears* that the fuselage was left natural wood, with
another color (olive?) _smeared_ - not streaked - on the fuselage.
However, since I am NOT an expert in colors or how to distunguish
them in black and white photo's, the color info is mere speculation.
For more information - and if you're patient :-) - I would wait for
one of the few tomes coming out that would deal with this particular
D.VII. One of them could be the Fokker D.VII Datafile Special "in
the works"; another could be the book the Alex Imrie said he would
"think" of doing on the D.VII - after his *excellent* Dr.I book; and
the future release of another Windsock special on Fokker
Experimentals (ala Albatros Experimentals) could be another. I would
also suspect that this will be covered in the future release of the
Grosz book on German Aircraft (ala Austro-Hungarian aircraft).
A side note: I am not an expert at anything. I will give my
opinion if asked, and it will be my opinion. I have a vast library
I'm willing to share with the list, and will try to do so when - and
if - I can. When I operate from memory (which is dulled at times) I
try to say that. If I make a mistake with something I wrote, I'm
sorry, and I'll try to say that when the point is made. If anbody
has any problems with what I write, then let me know. If the
feeling is strong that I talk to much "out the side of the neck",
and uninformed, then I'll unsubscribe. I also make spelling
mistrakes...;-)
Matt
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Matthew Bittner WW1 Modeler, ecto subscriber, semi-new dad,
meba@cso.com PowerBuilder developer; Omaha, Nebraska
Disclaimer: opinions expressed by me are my responsibility only.
"Villians I say to you now: knock off all that evil!"
- The Tick
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