Always happy to see Swedish machines, and I have a soft spot for those that float, so this is right up my alley. Love it
The paintjob looks spot on to me, very neat model. The scheme dates it approximately to the earliest late 1922, when it was issued that the previously black floats of all Navy float planes were to be repainted light blue.
There are pictures of the Sk2, though the story is a bit complicated. The Swedes bought two German-built FF33L (designated ”Friedrichshafen smaller” in Sweden) in 1919 that were written off after crashes already in the same year. How they were painted I have no idea and I have not seen any pictures of these. The planes were operated by the Naval air service, who decided to replace them by making copies, a task that befell TDS - the Torpedo department at the Stockholm naval yard. The navy has abandoned it, and one of the workshops is a restaurant now. In case anyone goes to Stockholm I can recommend a visit, the island where it is located is a bit of an oasis in the busy centre (or at least it used to be). Sorry, digressing.
The designation of the
pirated reverse-engineered version was Friedrichshafen type 20-22 Swedish, or just ”Friedrichshafen Swedish” Although I have seen second/third-hand sources claiming they were copies of the FF33L, I believe they were actually copies of the FF33E with some modifications - but I’m not sure! In any case the new planes received the same numbers as the original German FF33Ls, Fb (”Flying boat”) nr. 18 and 19. I have seen photos of at least one of the machines, I can try to find them if you want, but they may reveal that it looked more like an FF33E
.
The FF33E and FF49C were designated ”Friedrichshafen larger” and ”Friedrichshafen largest”, and this naming convention makes it a bit confusing.
