Albatros D.Va D5390/17

By Cam Riley

D5390/17 History

On the 17th of December 1917, six Albatrous Scouts dived on a 3 Sqn Australian Flying Corps RE8 A3816 of Sandy and Hughes. In the ensuing fight the pilot of the Albatros D5390/17 was wounded by a bullet fired from the twin Lewis guns of Hughes. The Albatros came down and landed fairly gently behind the lines of the 21st Infantry Battalion of the Second Australian Division, AIF. A second RE8 of Jones and Hodgson from 3 Sqn attempted to rescue the RE8 of Sandy and Hughes, Hodgson firing 400 rounds in the ensuing battle. A third RE8 from 3 Sqn was moving to join the fight when the Albatros Scouts broke off. Jones flew close to Sandy's machine but neither Sandy or Hughes acknowledged the other RE8. Jones and Hodgson assumed everything was alright as Sandy and Hughes's aircraft was flying fine. Jones and Hodson broke off to Bailleul for more ammunition.

The Squadron didnt hear from Sandy and Hughes that night. A telegram from the 12th Stationary Hospital at St Pol arrived the next morning with the information that the dead bodies of Sandy and Hughes had been recovered from a field where they had safely landed 3 miles outside of St Pol. Captain Ross of 3 Sqn was sent to the crash site and discovered the aircraft had landed with the throttle wide open from a steep descent. The only damage from the landing being a broken propeller and a slightly crumpled right wing. The post mortem of Sandy and Hughes came to the conclusion they had been killed by the same armour piercing bullet that had passed through Hughes lung and into the base of Sandy's skull..

The squadron managed to piece together what had happened the previous day. Sandy and Hughes had been killed in the fight with the six Albatros aircraft. Their aircraft had flown in wide circles until the RE8's fuel tanks were empty and with a strong North East wind, the RE8 had drifted in wide circles to St Pol, 50 miles away. The RE8 of Sandy and Hughes is often referred to as the "Ghost RE8".

The Albatros Scout D5390/17 was recovered by the Australian Infantry and then transported to 3 Sqn Australian Flying Corps aerodrome at Bailleul. The aircraft was then shipped by the order of 2nd Brigade Royal Flying Corps to No.1 Supply Depot at St Omer and given the "G" Number G101. The aircraft was test flown in England before finally being presented to the Australian Government as a War Trophy. The aircraft was displayed until 1948 when it was removed from the public eye due to a dilapidated condition and stored at the Military Academy at Duntroon.

While at Duntroon it was damaged by vandals, a chunk was broken off from the propeller, a hole kicked in the ply skin and a Spandau gun removed. Though the gun was later recovered. In 1966 - 68 the Albatros was moved to Camden in Sydney where it was restored to it's present day condition. The Albatros was on display in the Australian War Memorial's Aircraft Hall until 1999 when it was moved to the Treloar Centre for reconditioning and restoration. D5390/17 is currently undergoing restoration in the Australian War Memorial's Treloar Centre.

D5390/17 Markings

The following information is courtesy of Chris Shephard. The information in the [] brackets denotes D5390/17's current non original markings.

Overall varnished fuselage

Dark green fuselage from rear cabane attachment point to front of tail planes from the lower longeron up, it continued over the top of the fin to the rear of the timberwork. The starboard area of the fin was dark green but the port remained varnished exposing the 5390/17. The normal early style crosses were untouched on both sides. Rudder was green on both sides without covering the crosses.the outline of the side crosses showed through on the fuselage sides as a raised area.

Undersides of the stabilizers and elevator was Buff.

Cockpit leather was dark brown.

Gray timber wheel disks [green,aluminium].

Varnished under carriage foils [green upper/blue lower sides].

All struts and under carriage was khaki brown except for outer V struts in light grey [all now dark green].

All metal cowls,and hatches were khaki brown [dark green].

Upper wings had green on either tip, Starboard side began at the 2nd rib from aileron root to right of the cabane attachment bolt plate. This aileron was in 5 colour fabric as combat damage had occured previously. The port side was also green naturally this began level with the cabanes on the t/e and ended 1/4 of the way out to the V struts (from the cabanes), all remaining upper side center section were in mauve. [5 colour hand sprayed,top and bottom].

Port lower wing had a mauve inboard area 1/2 rib out at the t/e running to 3 ribs out at the L/e. the mauve began again at 8th rib on the T/e and ended at the 9th on the L/e.center was dark green [lozenge].

Starboard lower wing was dark green from the root to between 5th and 6th rib at the T/e to between 4th and 5th rib at the L/e.dark green began again at the 4th rib from the tip at the L/e and ran to the 3rd rib from the tip at the T/e. In between was mauve [lozenge].

Undersides of top wing was printed in 5 colour pattern.

Underside of lower wings was sky blue as per earlier types

It is apparent that the CO ordered the 5 colour pattern to be overpainted with the earlier blue/green/mauve to match existing units on strength.One assumes that the upper wing underside was due to be painted soon, however I'm (Chris) sure the mechanics didnt get the afternoon of 17th December off.

The finish of the upper sides of the stabilizer is the sticking point, the outer bay of the stabilizers was dark green and the inboard 2 bayslight blue. ditto for the elevator but the light blue went right across to the next area of green, the fuselage dark green was not continued onto the elevator here. Where the two colours met there was apparently a red line (about 50mm wide) that wrapped around the stabilizer,but not the elevator.This line I have been informed was actually the 'same' purple as that in the 5 colour print,and continued the full way around the whole tailplanes. [light blue undersides,lozenge uppers].

From a post to the WWI list by Shane Weier on the Upper Wing radiator on D5390/17;

The radiator *framework* of D.5390/17 was originally painted in Albatros green, same colour as the metalwork. When it was restored by my late friend Eric Watson, it was stripped back to bare metal and repainted in the same colours and to the same extent using photographs taken during disassembly for that purpose.

D5390/17 Build Up

I bought the Eduard "Flashar" D.V kit from Rosemont Hobbies and within two days it was in my mailbox. First thing I noticed upon opening the box was that I should have ordered a kit with decals that had the Maltese Crosses rather than the Greek Crosses of the Flashar kit. Thankfully WWI list member Dale Beamish upon hearing my dohs from as far away as far north Canada generously sent me some Maltese Cross Decals from his spare parts box.

The cockpit was completed using the Eduard plastic and PE. The only addition being wooden ribbing inside. No particular reason other than I like seeing wood in the cockpits of my 1/48 models. The wood ribbing is probably hopelessly out of scale. The Mercedes Engine was left standard as well, the only modification being drilling out the end of the exhaust. The fuselage halves fit together fairly well, no putty was used to seal any seams. Running CA down the spine was enough to fill the small edge there.

The woodgrain was simulated using Testors Light Ivory as an undercoat and swipes of Testors Wood mixed with Future floor polish over the top. The wood grained areas were then coated again a couple of more times with Future to get a honeyed look. It worked well on the fuselage but a dirty brush darkened and muddied the effect on the fixed vertical stabilizer. The wings and and body were sprayed in Testors Medium Green and the mouve colour used was Testors Gloss Purple. The under colours for the lower wings and the horizontal stabilizer was Testors Gloss Light Blue. All colours used were straight out of the bottle.

The lozenge on the upper wing bottom and the top wing right aileron was Propagal decal sheet. I ruined the original decal sheet by getting sticky tape stuck to it when masking. The lozenge decal ripped straight off and made a mess doing so. Thankfully I met list member Micheal Alvarado at a local hobby shop and mentioned my predicament, Micheal generously dumped on me 20 or so decal sheets. The Propagal decals look a million times better than the Eduard lozenge which came with the kit.

Attaching the top wing was fairly simple, though finding the holes intended for the outer wing struts under the lozenge required some concentration. The cabane struts that come with the Eduard kit are PE and pretty flimsy. I cut out styrene rod in the shape and length of the PE struts and glued them in to fix the top wing in place. The styrene cabane struts added a lot of stability to the flippy floppy top wing.

By this stage in the build process I had commited a couple of ummah's. The first I forgot to add a fuel tank behind the Mercedes. It isnt really visible under the top wing anyway so got away with that one. The other ummah was decaling the vertical stabilizer with a Maltese Cross before gluing it to the fuselage. The cross is at a bit of a steep angle now. Not overly noticeable but next time a I do an Albatros I will decal the vertical stabilizer later on in the build process. I also left off the thin mauve/red stripes either side of the blue strip on the tail, mainly because I forgot.

The horizontal stabilizer when dry fit was fairly tight to the fuselage and was causing the elevator to warp noticeably. After filing down the edges the elevator sat stress free and unwarped in its place and I glued it in. As per a post by Shane Weier, I painted the non gill areas of the Eduard PE a green colour. I chose Testors Medium Green for this to match the colour I had chosen for the fuselage and wings. The undercarraige was dry fitted, testing that it was square and then fixed to the fuselage with CA.

In conclusion, this is a beautiful model of a beautiful plane. Mauves, Blues, Roses, Greens and wood grain make for a visually stunning model on top of a sleek shape. The Australian War Memorial's Albatros DVa can make an out of the box non standard kit that looks differant and unusual without any need for after-market or specialty decals.