Hi, Rick, Przemo, Nigel and Gaz, thank you for joining me on this journey! It promises to be fun and interesting, I hope I can keep pace with you, Przemo! But it's such a beautiful aircraft, I have to do my best!
But I have to confess a little confusion about Jasta 11 Pfalz DIII's and DIIIa's. And I do refer to that excellent tome by Greg VanWyngarden published by Ray Rimmell as von Richthofen's Flying Circus: There are two photographs, 129 and 130 (page 48) of the (?) same Pfalz DIII 1369/17 that has a dark coloured band around the rear fuselage with an overall Silbergrau colour scheme with (?) red struts and nose and undercarriage, but the fuselage band colour is unknown, and note this is a DIII for sure... Pfalzes were rare in Jasta 11 and I'm not sure of any other photos... so this DIIIa profile comes as a surprise: It has been done many times, all the same, and as for the colour scheme I'm not sure what it's based on:
I picked this image as there is no obvious copyright and it has been reproduced numerous times, but I will remove it if there are any problems at all.
The only reference I can get for this scheme is the written line in the above mentioned reference: (Italics mine:) At least one Jasta 11 pilot is
recorded as having flown a Pfalz DIIIa; Leutnant von Linsingen crashed D.IIIa 4223/17 on January 24 1918 and was hospitalized. (Presumably 4223/17 was a wreck!). I suspect that these profiles are reconstructions and not based on photographs: I would really love to see some photographic proof! Does anyone have any other info? I would be most grateful!
Regards,
Marc.