And it is indeed surprising, what the pilot said qbout this bird. Well, probably the original was much better.
It's a cruel world Stachel.
One of the team responsible for replicating the iconic paint job during the restoration told me this on Facebook: "yep she was nicknamed “rubber wings” by the pilots of the movie, it’s a floating rear spar much like the DV Albatros, the lower wings oscillate at speed and can seperate, this phalz like the DV a had the aileron cables go through the lower main which meant if the failed you lost control of the ailerons". So far aside from the film aircraft
* there's been only one other flying full-size D.III replica built (
by Ron Kitchen) although I've never read anything about its flying characteristics, and there's a long-running build thread at The Aerodrome for what looks to be
a very accurate rendition, so unfortunately we don't know how well a modern example can fly.
*It should be noted that
the other pfalse Pfalz built for
The Blue Max, the
Tiger Moth fuselage-based example by Tony Bianchi/Personal Plane Services, is
also owned by Sir Peter Jackson/TVAL and
not only flies regularly at airshows but is the next step in their pilot training after the Tiger Moth and then (I believe) DH.5. And, rather appropriately, its registration is ZK-FLZ
