Albatros D.V
Eduard 1/72

By: Ray Boorman

Jasta 34b DV flown by Oblt Robert Greim from late 1917 through early 1918.

My entry for the cook-up is the Aircraft flown by Oblt  Robert Griem. He flew with Jasta 34b  from late early 1917 through the middle of 1918. During this time he was also appointed leader of Jagdgruppe  10, from July of 1918 Greim commanded  JGr9 . In the final weeks of October 1918 Greim returned to command Jasta 34b through to the Armistice.

Jasta 34b seems to have adopted  a  whitish silver coloration on the fuselages of their aircraft. Each pilot choosing his own individual markings. Robert Greim used two red bands and a red spinner over the silver fuselage colouring..

My model represention started as the Eduard 1/72 Albatros DV/DVa. This model as it comes out of the box is almost to good. I decided to build it with only the minimum of changes. I added DV style Aileron Shrouds and removed the small support struts from the mainplane struts. With those modifications the model becomes a DV. I also scratched some cockpit details  and that was it. This model is so easy to build its about as close to a shake the box model as any biplane can get. I did remove  the inspection panels molded on the undersides of the lower wing. These are correct for a DVa only.

Paint was mixed from Ceramcoat and Liquitex.  Although the fuselage appears pale grey in photos, its actually my version of silbergrau. 3 parts silver 1 part white and a touch of paynes grey.  As to why Silbergrau, well I just believe that in the shortage ridden Jasta's,  silver paint would have been at a premium, but for a Jasta who operated Pfalz DIII/DIIIa's the often described whitish silver would have been none other than the same color supplied for maintaining the Pfalz.  Do I know this for a fact, no but hehe  this era allows for such suppositions.

The three images below are of the model during the painting stage. This is when some ahem small problems occurred

1)  The first is during the spraying of the Fuselage. Notice the  cockpit plug.  At the worst moment it fell out. I turned the model over to spray the top of the fuselage and you guessed it, sprayed Silbergrau into the cockpit. Not just that but the plug pulled out the half instrument panel I had worked hard  putting  in. ;(  

2) They say trouble goes in threes well I am not superstitious, but I should be. After finishing most of the painting I rigged the aircraft. I normally do this with invisible nylon thread through the wings and ca'ed in place. Usually I fill in where I pulled the rigging through and after a small amount of sanding fix up the paint on the wings. Its not usually a problem, however instead of Ceramcoat I used liquitex for the green and to my chagrin I discovered  its very very fragile.  During the clean up of the wing I ended up having to sand more than I intended since the paint peeled  off, oh well back to spraying.

3) Albatros complete, or as done as I get ;)