Jase wrote:
OK, two questions. First, what is the deal with the multi-coloured tiling on the Fokker wings? Looks different and cool, boy it musta been a joy to mask and paint tho!
Jase,
The underside of the Fokker DVII is an example of First World War German camouflage. It is called lozenge and was used widely in several variations on many German aircraft. The most common versions were probably 4 colour light, 4 colour dark, 5 colour light and 5 colour dark although I believe there were other versions used on things such as bombers and night fighters.
Originally the fabric itself was printed with the pattern, so no painting involved! It was simple covered with clear dope and varnished (yes, varnished) to protect it.
These days there are several sources of reproduction linen and ceconite with lozenge printed on them (commercially available from Ross Walton at
www.vintageaerofabrics.com ).
This particular DVII seems to have been painted. At the Great War Flying Museum our DVII was also hand painted because it was built before people like Ross had started making lozenge again. The method employed at the GWFM was to sit the wing vertically after it had been covered with plain fabric. Then an overhead projector was used to project the image onto the wing where it was traced by hand and then painted by hand. Unfortunately in our case not everything was quite lined up and there is some distortion in the pattern, but we hope to recover the wings with ceconite fabric when they next need to be done.
Hope that answers your question. The lozenge question is one of the ones we get most commonly when people see the DVII at a show.
Cheers
Edward
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
