• Victory 3

Overwinning 03

Event ID: 131

Categorieën:

Luchtgevecht
Engels
Under the guns of the Red Baron, Norman Franks, Hal Giblin and Nigel McCrery

30 september 1916

50.10435494558121, 2.913033188950037
Near Frémicourt
Lagnicourt

Source ID: 13

Under the guns of the Red Baron, Norman Franks, Hal Giblin and Nigel McCrery p. 18

ISBN: 9781898697275

Tegenstander was Ernest Landsdale

vliegend met de F.E.2b 6973

VS

MvR vloog met de Albatros D.I 391/16

“Gevechtsverslag: 1150 uur, bij Lagnicourt Rond 1150 uur viel ik, vergezeld van vier vliegtuigen van onze Staffel boven ons vliegveld bij Lagnicourt en op 3.000 meter hoogte, een Vickers Squadron aan. Ik koos een machine uit en na ongeveer 200 schoten begon het vijandelijke vliegtuig naar beneden te glijden in de richting van Cambrai. Uiteindelijk begon het cirkels te maken. Het schieten was gestopt en ik zag dat de machine ongecontroleerd vloog. Omdat we al vrij ver van onze frontlinies waren, liet ik het kreupele vliegtuig achter en koos een nieuwe tegenstander. Later kon ik zien hoe de eerder genoemde machine, achtervolgd door een Duitse Albatros, brandend neerstortte bij Fremicourt. De machine brandde tot as. Weer: de hele dag helder en mooi, met af en toe wolken in de middag.”

Comments (1)

  1. Source: Inside the victories of Manfred von richthofen – Volume 1, James F. Miller, Aeronaut Books, 2016

    The colors and markings description of Richthofen’s Albatros D.I is the result of “reverse engineering” several photographs of Richthofen standing near an overpainted Albatros D.II with a white stripe around its engine cowl. Reasonable circumstantial photographic provenance suggests (but does not prove) this D.II was his personal machine, regardless of its serial number (which cannot be seen). Researcher Lance Bronnenkant generously provided new photographs first published in his Blue Max Airmen Series Vol. 5 that shows a Jasta 2 Albatros D.I overpainted in the same manner, also with a white stripe around its engine cowl. The logical speculative conclusion based on the similar markings is this D.I likely was also Richthofen’s.

    In photographs of this machine, the “3” and the “1” in the serial number can be determined but the middle digit cannot, aside from its round shape suggesting 0,3,6,8 or 9. That the serial number begins with a 3 identifies the machine as from the 12 Albatros D-type pre-production machines, numbered 380/16 to 391/16; which eliminates 0,3, and 6 as the middle digit and limits the remaining choices to either 381/16 or 391/16. Careful scrutiny via Photoshop reveals the right side of the middle digit is a continuous arc, more closely resembling a 9 than an 8, which would have a midpoint indentation. The digit thickness is consistent with a 9 as well, whereas an 8 would be very thin on its upper right side, and that is not present in the photograph. 391/16 is a well-known machine that was studied and photographed extensively after it was brought down by a bullet to the radiator and subsequently captured intact (16 November 1916, pilot Ltn. Karl Büttner, PoW). It was repaired and test-flown by the British until it crashed via unknown circumstances and presumably destroyed. If 391/16 were formerly Richthofen’s there is no trace of any overpainted white nose stripe in any post-capture photograph, although ostensibly Büttner would have removed Richthofen’s personal white stripe when adding his own markings, a large “Bü” on both sides of the fuselage adjacent the cockpit. Additionally, at some point a thin white outline had been added to at least the port fuselage cross.

    Beantwoorden

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