I've just found this thread.
Blimey Brian, you've got a real bee in your headgear! I got your email yesterday and responded to it this morning (French Time). No evidence of any other email from you, apart from the order you placed. So if you did contact me "repeatedly" I don't have a record on the Hotmail account - this actually wouldn't be the first time that emails have gone missing on hotmail.... we will have our own website and proper email address at the end of the month - so communications and ordering, viewing catalogues etc will all be easier.
Slightly miffed at your dig that I'm only interested in taking your money - not $40.00 either, but accuracy seems to drift when people get grumpy..... As this question is now part of a thread, I'll reproduce below the email I sent to Brian this morning, so that everyone has the info (such as it is). I heartilly agree with Bo's sentiments in his last post regarding the difficulty of producing satisfactory answers to modelling markings queries for WWI subjects. It isn't like the second World War, where standardisation was widespread and photos were taken far more often and sometimes even in colour - although that doesn't necessarily help; see controversy about colour behind P-47 side windows etc etc! Anyway, here's the content of my email to Brian:
Hello Brian,
Thanks for the email, I'm glad you like the decals.
On Lori2, you'll have read the entry in the booklet, I presume? The only reference I have is the single photograph in the Gotha datafile. In the vast majority of cases we only have a single photograph of a particular colour scheme and I try my best to reasonably extrapolate the scheme from what I have. When I posted the initial profile drawings for these decals I had a very helpful email from Richard Alexander and on the subject of Lori 2 he said that he felt that it was Gotha-built rather than LVG, as it had the Gotha-type propeller guards.
In the photograph you will see that it is very hard to discern anything other than a single colour and when the two-tone scheme was used, the two colours are quite easy to pick out. Were there any Gotha-built G.IVs in two-tone camouflage? Well yes, at least one, as seen in the WNW instruction booklet on page 13 but note that this was a photo taken in September 1917 of an aircraft from the first production batch, which would have left the factory around March in the overall light blue scheme. Where was it repainted? The serial has been very neatly re-finished, it seems in the lighter of the two camouflage colours, which might indicate that it was returned to the factory for repair and refinished there however, it might just have easily been repainted at unit or depot level when the attacks on England switched from day to night. I am told that there is photographic evidence that some G.IVs were re-painted on the airfield at Gontrode at that time, although the colours used aren't quoted. My opinion (note it is only my opinion!) is that Lori2 was repainted in a single colour over the original light blue and that colour could have been a dark blue/grey. If you want to follow the two-tone scheme, that's your choice - I only offer my conclusions as an opinion based on the info I have. To sum up then:
- Lori2 seems to be a Gotha-built machine as evidenced by the very specific propeller guards.
- The front area of the fuselage looks to be light blue rather than white
-the rear area I have shown as light blue cannot be seen in the photograph clearly, but there is a hint that the area was lighter and that would make sense if the painter wanted to retain the original serial number without having to re-paint it
- I cannot see a second dark camouflage colour, so I have assumed a single shade was used
Hope that is helpful but do bear in mind that WWI colour schemes are very often construed from a series of interpretive deductions (other people might call them "educated guesses"!). In a great many cases it is impossible to be proved wrong one way or the other, so what you do is down to you and how strongly you feel that your interpretation is right.
Good luck with your Gotha. Do you belong to any of the web forums? if so I'd love to see your progress on line - I do visit most from time to time. If not perhaps you could send me a photo of the finished model?
All the best
Rowan