Jump to content

Halberstadt D.II***FINISHED***


PeterB

Recommended Posts

My Rumpler C.IV build is approaching completion and I have learnt quite a lot from it about building short run WWI biplanes, but before I do more with my really "uncomfortable" FB.5 I think I still need to work on my technique with wing struts so I thought I would have a shot at this.

DSC08208-crop

Again a 2 bay biplane with staggered wings but at least there is no sweepback on the wings and it is a lot smaller, though that may turn out to be more of a disadvantage in some respects such as getting in to glue things. Anyway I always fancied one of these as although it was overshadowed by the slightly later and far better known Albatros D types it was actually rather a significant machine - first of the German purpose built tractor biplane fighters with a synchronized forward firing machine gun, and it helped to check the Allied air supremacy in the early part of 1916 when planes such as the DH.2, Morane Saulnier Type N and Nieuport 11 had largely put a stop to the so called "Fokker Scourge", but more on that later. Many years ago I did buy a vacform of this machine made by Airframe but it was really basic - just wings, tail and fuselage being "useable" as the wheels and props would have needed a lot of work. At the time I suspect I had not come across the Aeroclub white metal accessories and Contrail struts so it ended up in the bin. Later, perhaps 15 years ago I picked up this Pegasus limited run injection kit which, whilst still potentially tricky, is a lot better proposition.

DSC08253-crop

It comes with most of the bits needed except perhaps some rod but I may have misplaced that or put it in the FB.5 box in error. If you are going to build something like this it is a great help if you have one or more decent reference sources, but unlike the FB.5 and Rumpler I did not have a Windsock book on it. However browsing a well known auction site I spotted one by Peter Grosz for sale for £20 - far more than I was prepared to pay. However, the fact that this plane is not too well known and there are few if any kits about at the moment may have helped as nobody wanted to bid on it, so I made the seller an offer they could not refuse, and have just heard I have "won" it for considerably less! Once that arrives I shall make a start. I always find it mildly amusing when somebody sells something on auction sites that they perhaps think is rare/collectable due to its age/author or whatever but maybe overestimates the value to somebody who actually wants to read it, particularly if the subject is "specialised" as books that interest modellers often are! I think I got lucky this time as I rather suspect that only a slightly fanatical aircraft modeller would have ever heard of the Halberstadt fighters of WWI, few of which were actually built. Halberstadt were rather better known for their C and CL type two seaters. and in fact one of the vacforms I let Pat have was their CL II.

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 13
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh goody, another one in the offing Pete, good luck with this one too. The Halberstadts were another line where I liked the designs.

 

All the best, Ray

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, PattheCat said:

And another tiny biplane build for us to watch!

Thanks.

I hope you'll have less extra work than with the Rumpler and even more pleasure.

Thanks Pat,

 

Yes it is quite small - a span of 13.5cm compared with the 17.5cm of the Rumpler but just as many struts to squeeze in so actually getting in between the wings to do the struts is likely to be the main difficulty, particularly as it does not look as if I can use the same sort of short cut as I did with the cabane struts this time. I think the main problem with any biplane is getting the initial alignment of the top wing right and finding some way to support it until you can get more struts cut, adjusted and in place. I remember seeing a build a few years ago when the modeller had bought some sort of jig designed to hold biplane wings in place, possibly made of wood. The only ones I have been able to find seem to be for larger scales - 1/48 and 1/32 - except for one made by MIG/Ammo and that seems to be a plastic kit itself which you have to glue together, so that could cause accuracy problems unless you are very careful/precise when assembling it. I have also seen DIY ones made from LEGO but again I doubt they would work in 1/72, but I have a cunning plan involving some "childhood engineering skills", not that it is likely to work but we will see. I have a vague recollection that Aeroclub did perhaps sell a jig, which would perhaps make sense given the number of biplane kits they once produced, but I may be wrong. 

 

Once my book on the Halberstadt family of fighters arrives I will have a better idea of what I am up against.

 

Pete

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I found a review of the Aeroclub jig at LSP https://www.largescaleplanes.com/reviews/review.php?rid=1811. It looks like a very nice and versatile tool. Maybe the pics can help for a DIY one.

 

I built two biplanes, the first was at age 7. My first kit ever - a snap-fit kit - and the second was a 1/72 Gladiator in the mid-70s (I don't remember if it was Airfix or Matchbox).

I do like biplanes though but .....

 

this one that has been gathering dust for some years (and it's not the only one) was my second choice for this GB.

spacer.png

 

As you can see it sports Belgian Markings, first reason why I bought it. The second was that it has not many struts nor much rigging and the third that I got two in the box in case I'd break or lose parts.

Still, I didn't dare touch it (11;5 cm wingspan BTW) .

 

So you see why I particularly appreciate your builds.

 

Friendly greetings.

Pat.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, PeterB said:

"childhood engineering skills"

I have built a couple like that - two uprights with arms to go under each wing, the uprights angled so that if the wing leading edges touch them the stagger is right, with a couple of bits of plastic for the base to hold them the right width apart. If the wings have differing sweepback then stagger changes along the span so you have to choose where you want them. I even managed to re-use one by adding a couple of extra bits to change it around. I can take a pic (1000 words worth) if you would like.

 

15 minutes ago, PattheCat said:

second choice for this GB

If it's anything like their Ni-17 then it's a lovely kit. The interplane struts are "V"s, but the joint to the wing at the bottom is so good they act as a jig when they are dry.

 

Regards,

Adrian

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

If it's anything like their Ni-17 then it's a lovely kit. The interplane struts are "V"s, but the joint to the wing at the bottom is so good they act as a jig when they are dry.

 

Regards,

Adrian

Thanks for the "comforting" info Adrian @AdrianMF. As I also have an entry in the Crusaders and Corsairs STGB that I still have to start at, the Ni-23 shall not be in for this GB.

Maybe if after the NMCZ one you propose a TOOOM GB (Totally Out Of Our Minds) or GB GB (Going Bonkers)? 🤣

 

Kind regards.

Pat.

  • Like 1
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

I have built a couple like that - two uprights with arms to go under each wing, the uprights angled so that if the wing leading edges touch them the stagger is right, with a couple of bits of plastic for the base to hold them the right width apart. If the wings have differing sweepback then stagger changes along the span so you have to choose where you want them. I even managed to re-use one by adding a couple of extra bits to change it around. I can take a pic (1000 words worth) if you would like.

 

If it's anything like their Ni-17 then it's a lovely kit. The interplane struts are "V"s, but the joint to the wing at the bottom is so good they act as a jig when they are dry.

 

Regards,

Adrian

Hi Pat,

 

I have an Eastern Express (probably ex Toko) Nieuport 11 which is probably even smaller and maybe less well engineered - I may build that soon.

 

Hi Adrian,

 

Yes I would not mind seeing a pic of your jig. My Mk.I jig will be made from a metal product made in Liverpool years before I was born, but more on that later.😄

 

Pete

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, PattheCat said:

TOOOM GB

Having just spent 6 hours overnight painting green squiggles onto a plane for the Blitzbuild in one of the stupidest colour scheme choices I've ever made, I think I'm in with a chance of qualifying!

 

Sorry Pete, back to our regular scheduled programming - I will grab a jig photo when I've cleaned up the bench.

 

Regards,

Adrian

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ha! Who needs to tidy when you can just push it all to one side? Some jigs:

2-DF7-ED53-9877-4-B56-A951-DAAAF06-E05-B

 

Front row, L-R:

* biplane building jig - you can see where I've added bits of card to adjust gap and stagger for different models

* dihedral setting jig - the little card pieces ensure that the wings don't end up swept

* strut alignment jig - wing goes in the slot, align the struts with the dotted lines

Back row, L-R:

* transparent cabane jig - hole spacing copied from top wing, easier to see where everything ends up when gluing cabane struts to fuselage.

* this one was really useful, but I can't for the life of me remember what for! In the spares box for next time...

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

(I used to find Meccano tremendously frustrating)

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Adrian,

 

They look simple but effective - I may copy some of the ideas if I may. And yes, you guessed it!😆 The good thing is that is should in theory be fully adjustable in terms of rake and wing spacing if the ruddy nuts and bolts grip properly.

 

Pete

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I must admit my first thought on seeing the Aeroclub one was it looked like Meccano, so I reckon you're on the right path there, Pete ;)

 

James

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The book I bought has arrived so I will spend a few days reading it and working out a plan of action.

DSC08291-crop

It was the first in a spin off series from the producers of the Windsock Data Files and it very informative.

 

As I mentioned over in my FB.5 thread, at the start of WWI the only use envisaged for the “new fangled” aeroplanes was to fly them over the enemy lines on reconnaissance missions, and also to spot for artillery “shoots”. However both sides soon realised it would be a good idea to prevent the other side from doing this so began to look at a way to shoot them down. As it was clear that once one side started doing it the other would follow suit, so that also meant that each side had to protect their own recce planes which meant either arming them for self defence and/or providing them with fighter escorts. The ideal fighter would be able to fire a gun to the front, which was fine in pusher aircraft but a way was needed to enable tractor aircraft to either fire around the propeller arc, or better still through it so both individuals and companies began to look at developing a so called “interrupter gear” to regulate the fire so that it (hopefully) missed the prop blades. Raymond Saulnier was one of those working on this, but before he had any success a pilot called Roland Garros and his mechanic reputedly came up with a crude substitute – metal wedges on the blades which would deflect any rounds that would otherwise his the prop. Not an ideal solution but it worked well enough for him to shoot down a number of German aircraft when flying a Morane Saulnier L type parasol monoplane before being shot down by ground fire, and a similar system was fitted to a number of aircraft most notably the Morane Saulnier type N “bullet”.

 

A more satisfactory albeit still less than perfect solution was the interrupter gear developed by Fokker and fitted to his “Eindekker” type E I – E IV, which was essentially a converted and strengthened civil design, the E 5k which ironically  was said to have been influenced by an earlier design by Morane-Saulnier! Entering service in small numbers in the second half of 1915, usually as small defence flights attached to recce units, the E types were not that good, being fairly slow and lacking both in climb and manoeuvrability, but still wreaked havoc amongst the unarmed and often inherently stable allied planes, leading to the so called “Fokker Scourge”. The Allies responded with planes such as the single seat pusher DH 2 and the light and highly manoeuvrable Nieuport 11 which had a gun mounted on top of the upper wing firing over the prop arc, and gradually won back the initiative by a superior rate of production, so that when the Battle of the Somme started in mid 1916 they had a measure of superiority, but that was soon to change due to the arrival of the Halberstadt and slightly later Albatros D types.

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have made a start by cleaning up the flash and gluing the seat and control column to the floor. The fuselage was wood framed and mostly covered with cloth though there were some metal panels around the engine and also some plywood. Very little will be visible so I will not add any framing, and just paint the interior as doped fabric with a wood floor and IP.

DSC08296-crop

As you can see there is some nice detail on the upper surface of the top wing - a radiator to the right and a header tank to the left of centre. Unlike the slightly later Albatros D.I and the early versions of the D.II, Halberstadt did not use the drag inducing box type radiators at the sides of the fuselage, When Albatros introduced a wing mounted radiator on the late D.II and early D.III they put it in the middle where it would spray the pilot with boiling water if punctured by bullets, and it was not until the late production D.III and the D.V that they moved it to one side so whether by accident or design Halberstadt got that right from the very start!

 

It is a good job I did decide to by the book by Grosz as it would have been virtually impossible to build this kit accurately based on the minimal instructions and the undersized drawings provided by Pegasus.

DSC08298-crop

The layout of the 6 cabane struts and the engine/exhaust is far more complex than I would have thought - the struts for example are not symmetrical with the front two on the Starboard side being shorter and perhaps at a more acute angle than those on the Port side, perhaps to give the gun a clear field of fire, but I will explain that somewhat later - I think another short cut is going to be needed! The area between the top of the fuselage and the upper wing is going to be pretty crowded with 6 struts, a pipe from the engine to the radiator on the wing and the exhaust so getting in to glue everything is going to be tricky and take a little planning I think. In fact the relatively poor view from the cockpit was, together with the light armament, about the only things pilots seem to have complained about!

 

So, time for a bit of background. To loosely quote Wiki-

'In April 1912 a joint British/German venture called Deutsche Bristol Werke Flugzeug-Gesellschaft mbH was set up near Halberstadt to licence build Bristol aircraft (and also some Taube types) but soon expanded in their developments. In September 1913 the company was renamed Halberstädter Flugzeugwerke GmbH. The chief designers were Hans Burkhardt, who later transferred to Gothaer Waggonfabrik, and the technical director and chief engineer was Karl Theiss.'

 

Their first in-house design was the Halberstadt B.I two seater which was mainly used for training but later up-engined as the B.II and B.III recce planes. In late Autumn 1915 a slimmed down single seat version called the D.I first flew powered by the 100hp Mercedes D.I engine, and after service test proved satisfactory an order was placed for 12 on March 8th 1916, a couple of months before Fokker received an order for the first of his D series fighters. By the time it entered service the D.I had a new 120hp Mercedes D.II and was renamed the D.II whilst a parallel development with a 120hp Argus AS.II engine became the D.III, the first example of which actually seems to have reached the front line in February 1916, presumably for squadron testing. The “official” batch of 8 D.II and D.III formally entered service in June of that year, with one being flown by Oswald Boelcke a few days later. Reports showed that the pilots liked the plane though would have preferred two guns instead of the one fitted, but again more on that later.

 

Incidentally, the early Fokker biplanes the D.I and D.II were contemporaries of this machine and were possibly a little faster than the Halberstadt but otherwise fairly undistinguished with poor climb rates and manoeuvrability, due perhaps to Fokker's preference for wing warping rather than ailerons, and unlike the Halberstadt they suffered structural problems, due in part to poor standards of manufacture which would dog Fokker's designs all the way through to the D.VIII with the possible exception of the D.VII. In fact judging by the books I have read Fokker has come to have a reputation in some quarters for somewhat shady business practices such as copying other peoples designs and claiming them as his own, poor quality control and manufacturing methods, some debatable financial dealings, and a good deal of self-glorification, all of which may or may not be correct of course.  Although the early Fokkers from the D.I to the D.V did see service in Squadrons in modest numbers and actually more were built than the Halberstadt fighters, they tended to be used as trainers for most of their short lives and seem to have been forgotten by most people (including me). The Halberstadt D.I,/D.II and D.III were the first D types ordered by the German forces and also the first to enter service as far as I can tell, though certain of the Fokker D types were in service within a week or two, and the first of the Albatros D.I arrived before the end of the year, the latter being faster and better armed, but somewhat less manoeuvrable by all accounts. Typically only small orders were issued at first so until the formation of the true fighter squadrons or "Jagdstaffeln aka Jastas", units were mostly equipped with a handful of several different types, often a mix of two seat recce planes and a small "defence/escort" flight as with the "Eindekkers" before them. In May 1916 the Idflieg ordered 24 more Halberstadts and 80 more Fokkers, and in July of that year a further order was placed for some 266 D type fighters, perhaps as a consequence of the appearance of numerous enemy aircraft over the Somme battlefield as I mentioned earlier..

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good luck with the cabane struts Pete! It looks very complicated in there, as you have suggested. Plenty of NMCZ-ness there for you.

 

Ray

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The interior is done.

DSC08302-crop

I was a little concerned about all the metal up front - engine, exhaust, gun and prop and though there was a slight chance it would sit nose down so put a little ballast in the rear - it probably does not need it though had it been a vacform that might not be the case. The engine is nicely detailed as you can see. Halberstadt used a slightly unusual exhaust system on planes like the Albatros D types the pipe simply came out of the right hand side of the engine and was swept slightly outwards to the rear, ending in front of the cockpit but on this machine the manifold goes inside the fuselage and is joined through the side panel to a long asbestos covered pipe that runs back along the outside to well behind the pilot - you will see what I mean later.

DSC08303-crop

I have put the manifold in place but not the pipe. Presumably this reduced both the noise level and fumes for the pilot. Some pics do show the more simple rhino horn type vertical exhaust, mostly on Argus engined D.III though this seems to have been used infrequently and would probably add to the problems with view from the cockpit, surrounded as it was by 6 cabane struts and the long pipe connecting the front of the cylinder block to the radiator in the upper wing. The trough on the side is where the gun goes.

 

About 120 years ago a chap called Frank Hornby came up with an "educational engineering toy for boys" which he called Meccano. He went on to make Hornby Trains and Dinky Toys and when I was at Uni in the late 1960's I often used to drive past the company factory at Binns Road in Liverpool. My parents acquired a suitcase full of Meccano from a friend when I was about 10 I guess - I suspect it was already at least 30 years old and came with some clearly inter- war years instruction books. My father and I had great fun building things with it, particularly after we added some of the more recent flexible plates, but I stopped using it many years ago and it has spent the last 30 years in my garage slowly going rusty. I dug some of the cleaner bits out and here is my first prototype Mk I Biplane jig!

DSC08306-crop

No doubt I will have to modify it once the lower wings are on and I might add some "straps" to hold them in place, but the basic idea seems sound - it also has the advantage of being easily adjusted! The straight green "5 hole strips" are set at the correct stagger angle and the curved ones should allow the upper wing to be set at the correct height and level. It is still going to be a real old fiddle as the gap under the top wing is very small so getting the struts and everything else in will be tricky, but as I will explain later the cabane struts may not be quite as bad as I thought.

 

 

Pete

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good use of Meccano for the jig. I sometimes borrow bits of Lego from my adult sons huge collection of the stuff for jigs. He is into Star Wars,  when he wasn't working, he bought up bags of the stuff that parents sell off. It is often is full sets but in pieces with no instructions. He has made up quite a few sets and managed to show a good profit. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having glued the fuselage together and then tidied up the joint I stuck the lower wings on. I had to slightly reprofile the inner edges to get them to mate better with the contour of the fuselage and also to give them a little dihedral. Once they were set I started thinking about the cabane struts. From the kit instructions I had thought that they were true "inverted V" form with a point at the top to go into the single holes that are on the underside of the kit upper wing, but looking at the photos in the book I realised that was not the case. In fact they have a "flattened" horizontal top section so I decided to use brass rod to make them as with the Rumpler, and before taking a pic. Before I knew it the rear on was on and then, after a couple of attempts to get the right length the front one joined it. 

DSC08308-crop

As I mentioned earlier, the front one was not symmetrical as it had to allow clearance on the starboard side for the gun to fire without shooting the strut off!

DSC08310-crop

I did not get the top exactly horizontal but it will do - the jig helped a lot in getting the lengths correct. Due to the extremely limited clearance under the upper wing I will now partially paint it before going any further, and get the gun and exhaust on. There seem to have been two basic colour schemes though to some extent it depends on which company actually built the machine in question - besides Halberstadt themselves, some were made by Aviatik as D.II(Av) though it seems that initially their planes failed structural loading tests so their arrival at the front was delayed until early 1917, and Hannover also built some as D.II(Han). The "normal" scheme seems to have been red/brown and dark green uppers with light unders - either clear doped linen or possibly light blue, but some photos show an overall light coloured finish. As the markings clearly had white backgrounds it is unlikely that they were white, though one or two may have been. The rest seem to have been doped linen or maybe light blue, but there is some evidence of a grey, possibly "feldgrau" finish, particularly on those used by the Turks in the Middle East theatre. Struts, which were all steel,  seem to have been either brown or light grey.

 

The Halberstadt fighters were strongly built with twin bay wings, a wood  leading edge to the top wing and the trailing edge of both wings was also reinforced with wood, unlike the more common wire bracing which gave many German planes a characteristic "scalloped" appearance. In spite of the apparently frail appearance of the all flying tail surfaces it seems that there were no reports of structural failure to Halberstadt fighters, unlike the later Albatros D.III and D.V - in fact one or two of the German "aces" reverted to the Halberstadt for a while after the early Albatros D.III wing problems arose. With the 120hp engine the D.II and D.III were not particularly fast (top speed seems to have been 90mph, 12mph less than the Albatros D.I) ) but had a fair rate of climb ( far better than the "Eindekker" it replaced ) and excellent manoeuvrability and the book by Grosz says that when flown in a test against an Albatros D.I  it clearly manoeuvred better. Whilst some pilots preferred the heavier armament of the twin gun Albatros and its better speed, particularly in a dive, others felt that the Halberstadt was a better fighter. As I mentioned earlier the only real complaints about the Halberstadt concerned the view from the cockpit and the shortage of firepower and the designers did try to correct this with the D.IV and D.V, on which more later.

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Coming along well Pete. It was some good fortune about the cabane struts, and made it a bit less of a struggle for you. Thanks again too for the background information.

 

Ray

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Pegasus kit comes with markings for a quite well photographed machine serial D.818/16 ,  one of a batch of 30 with serials D.800-829/16  built by Hannover to an order dated July 1916 and was originally called the Hannover D.I before it became the D.II (Han). One of the distinguishing features is the white serials white Hannover used – other companies seem to have used black. Wiki has this to say -

 

'The Hannoversche Waggonfabrik AG (Hawa) was founded in 1898 to build passenger and freight cars for Germany's railways. When the First World War began, Hannover built rolling stock for the German military, before gradually becoming more and more involved in the production of aircraft, starting with the manufacture of propellers in 1915 before moving on to repair work, and the license manufacture of aircraft by the end of the year. An important reason why Hannover, along with other railway manufacturers, was encouraged to move into aircraft work was that, not only did it have an extensive, well trained workforce, but also possessed large stocks of seasoned wood'.

 

Later Hannover began to design their own machines and are best known for their CL series CL.II, CLIII and CLIIIa aka the “Hannoveranas” but there were also a CL.IV and CL.V – the former never entered production and around 50 of the latter were built before the Armistice.

 

The colour schemes used on German WWI aircraft is not a very well documented subject, and in the Windsock books is usually covered by the Series Editor, Ray Rimmel. It is interesting to note that in books authored by Peter Grosz he goes out of his way to distance himself from the section on colours, sometimes rather forcefully! Rimmel usually provides Munsell/Methuen references for the colours but points out that where no actual fabric samples were available to be tested the colours must at best be regarded as approximate. In this case I have gone for the Colourcoats red/brown, one of their greens and some old Humbrol Authentic HB16 “Clear doped linen” which has a slightly yellower colour than some of the alternatives and seemed perhaps more appropriate for a German plane based on illustrations I have seen. The span-wise band of green on the wings is a bit unusual but appears to be accurate.

DSC08327-crop

 

I have painted the struts in Hu 87 “Steel” as it is a blue/grey. The exhaust was heavily lagged with asbestos – probably paste, and is shown as a light grey in illustrations. Back in 1968 as part of my Uni course in Mechanical Engineering I spent several weeks of my summer vacation working at a local coal/coke powered power station, and besides emptying the ash boxes with an industrial vacuum cleaner whilst they were still hot, I also spent a few days with a team of “laggers” from Babcock and Wilcox. It was most educational in terms of expanding my vocabulary, and also potentially rather hazardous to my health as they were mixing powdered asbestos with water in a bucket to make a paste and then just slapping it on the piping – I was wearing the mask provided but they generally were not as it was uncomfortable in the heat and stopped them smoking - this was of course at a time when nobody realised just how dangerous asbestos dust could be in terms of cancer! My own recollections were that it dried to a very light grey, almost white, but darkened with heat and age. Makes a change from the usual rust coloured exhausts anyway.

 

Cockpits were rather cramped and as a result it was fairly common for some of the instruments to end up on the struts or wing - the circle near the Port wing root is where Pegasus correctly moulded the compass! I have enlarged the locating holes for the struts to give me a little wiggle room and to allow the glue to "puddle" so it might not build up as much as on the Rumpler. Before I go any further I will drill a hole in the nose for the prop shaft as Pegasus did not provide one.

 

Pete

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice going Peter! You'd be hard pressed to gather all that info from the Harleyford WWI books with their left-hand side only three views and  grainy black and white thumbnail pictures.

 

FWIW, for struts and metal panels there seemed to be a prevalent light grey-green colour, which wasn't a million miles away from RLM02. Wingnut Wings call out grey green for struts on the C.II, although their Humbrol match is Hu90 (sky!)

 

Regards,

Adrian

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, AdrianMF said:

Nice going Peter! You'd be hard pressed to gather all that info from the Harleyford WWI books with their left-hand side only three views and  grainy black and white thumbnail pictures.

 

FWIW, for struts and metal panels there seemed to be a prevalent light grey-green colour, which wasn't a million miles away from RLM02. Wingnut Wings call out grey green for struts on the C.II, although their Humbrol match is Hu90 (sky!)

 

Regards,

Adrian

Thanks Adrian,

 

Wood struts were usually varnished wood or light blue or blue/grey according to my sources. Metal ones like these were sometimes painted in camo colour but in the illustrations in my book this one seems to have them in blue/grey. The u/c legs and tail strut however seem to be black. Speaking of books the Putnam book on WWI German planes by Gray and Thetford says the gun on the Halberstadt D.II/II was on the Port side but all the pics and plans in my book show it on the Starboard as indeed Pegasus have moulded it so that must either be a typo or else they were getting confused with the D.V, pf which more later. The light grey-green colour you mention may be the same as one called grey-green primer I have come across, which looks close to RAF cockpit grey-green so that may be the source of their confusion - wrong Humbrol RAF colour? The Colourcoats "German WWI Medium Green" I used on my Rumpler also looks a bit like that!

 

Tomorrow, before starting on the upper wing, I may have a shot at the fuselage decs whilst it is still relatively easy/safe to handle. The kit instruction add the tail now but that is far too  fragile to my mind and will go on nearer the end,

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, PeterB said:

far too  fragile

That vertical fin does look a bit unsafe!

 

Maybe the green/grey was an Albatros-specific colour - your struts look good to me in blue grey.

 

Talking of "safety back in the day", during uni I worked a summer in the chemistry department at a lead-acid battery factory measuring lead levels in the air. The factory occupied around three quarters of a large square block in Birmingham - the other quarter of the block was an infants school!

 

Regards,

Adrian

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...