Hi all
I am building the 1/48 Mirage Halberstadt Cl. II and as the title suggests I have several inquiries to make and hopefully get some clarification on them. I have searched all over this forum and elsewhere to no avail. Please bare with me as I will try to be as thorough as possible and it may be a bit lengthy. Without further ado...
1.) Would the interior have been painted green as suggested in the instructions and as seen in the sole remaining example in Poland?
I understand that the preserved aircraft was actually used as a hack for a high ranking general as his personal transport, so could it have been specially painted for this purpose as opposed to just having a varnished wood interior like I have seen in so many other aircraft of this time? Is it known that Halberstadt actually painted their interiors similar to Pfalz doing so on their DIII fighters?
2.) When was the wireless equipment carried or not carried? What should be in the aircraft for a ground attack role, for example?
From what I have read, the transmitter/receiver units were only installed if the aircraft were performing a reconnaissance or artillery spotting type role, therefore should not be installed if configured for a ground attack role, to include the electric generator on the engine to power these. Is this correct? Were all of these components easily installed or taken out dependent on the given mission requirements for the day? Also, certain items such as the electrical wiring on the sidewalls and aerial antenna hand spool in the observer's station would have been ever-present regardless, would they not? Are those things that came standard on every aircraft as common equipment, therefore would not be able/necessary to remove as different missions called for either commo equipment or ordinance?
3.)What instruments were in the cockpit and where are their locations? I know next to nothing when it comes to wwi aircraft instruments and cannot identify them as easily at a glance (yet!) like I can usually do with 1940s era aircraft. I have been using the WNW PDF instructions for their Early Halberstadt Cl. II, downloaded from their website as a guide to further detail my 1/48 model. They show where to place the instrument decals of course, but do not label them as to what they are. No, I do not have their kit myself so I cannot reference the decal sheet directly to try to figure this out for myself.
The Mirage kit differs from the WNW kit as far as instrument layout goes. Example being the Mirage kit appears to depict a late style instrument panel when comparing between the two different ones WNW offers for their early and late kits. i have thus scratchbuilt my own to match the WNW early version. The large instrument on the WNW instrument panel is 1/2 red, 1/2 blue. What is it? I have yet to come across such an instrument in what little I can find so far in looking for wwi German aircraft instrumentation. Also, where WNW has a lever of some kind on the pilot's left hand sidewall, Mirage has an instrument mounted here, as seen in the Smithsonian's Cl. IV, but does not have the two instruments forward of that as depicted by WNW. What were those instruments?
4.) The rear bulkhead at the rear of the observers position. The WNW kit shows this covered with lozenge fabric, much like I have seen in the back of the cockpit of the Fokker D. VII. The Mirage kit doesn't show this, just the wood bulkhead itself. Would these have been almost always covered with a fabric panel to close off the rear of the fuselage interior?
Sorry for the long post guys. These questions have really been bugging me and I can think of no better place to ask these. i do Have a copy of the late Dan-San Abbot's book, Schlachflieger! on its way to me in the mail, so If any of you know if some of these questions are answered in that book, please let me know. Of course I will have a thorough investigation of it once it finally arrives.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this.
All the best
Chad
