Thursday, September 1, 2011

Albatros D.III Oeffag Part 3

More Colorful Albatros Oeffag Profiles

Once again my obsessive nature is showing. I promise to post some other aircraft types on the next go around. I have started preparations for several new Austrian aircraft types. I hope to have some masters finished this week and get stuck in doing lots of hexagonal paint schemes soon.

The dark wood finish and green camouflage of this series 153 sets off the large pilot insignia which painted over the serial number. The small printed under the Oeffag logo is Alb.III-Oeffag-153 bd the serial number is duplicated below the aircraft type. In this case it reads 153.10. The upper wing surfaces are done in the same green camouflage pattern.

The paint scheme on this series 153 is very distinctive. The streaked finish and the wishbone arrow flash was fun to do. The engine cover gives the aircraft a pleasing streamlined appearance.

This colorful example of a late war series 253 from Flik 63J served in 1918. The placement of the Maltese cross on the rudder was very unusual. The wheel cover scheme was used on several aircraft.

4 comments:

Jon Yuengling said...

What type of green pattern is on the top aircraft. It looks interesting.

Unknown said...

I am not sure what it was called Jon. The pattern is the same one used on the rudder and upper fuselage. There are examples of green and brown versions of the pattern. Austria used a wide variety of patterns which makes them a lot of fun to draw.

Zoe Brain said...

Any idea what the top views looked like - especially of Rudolf Nemetz' plane?

Unknown said...

Hello Zoe, thanks for the comment. and one of those tough questions.

As with all things Austrian there seem to be more exceptions than rules. In most cases I have not found solid references for the upper wings. In many cases I go with the best guess from what has been done in the side view.

On the Albatros D-III Oeffag sn153.10 The upper surfaces of the wings are painted with the same mottled green scheme as on the fuselage and rudder and the lower surfaces is natural varnished fabric. The crosses have thin white borders

The Albatros D-III Series 153 flown by Feldwebel Eugen Boentsch sn-153.40 has yellow wings the same shade as the rudder and lower wing surface. Looking at the decal sheet which includes this plane provides Iron Crosses without any bordering. There are no designs or identifiers on the sheet for the wings.

The wing color on the Albatros D-III Oeffag Series 253 attributed to Zgsf. Rudolf Nemetz Flik 63J sn-253.32 appears to be a pale gray. I have no reference on the upper surfaces for his aircraft, so I went with what is shown in other side profiles. I assume the wing crosses are late war Maltese style. I would assume they did not have white borders, but I may be wrong.

I hope this helps.

Cheers

Will