Here's the first stages of my first entry for the "Aces Mounts" Group Build. It's the Fokker DVII flown by Lothar von Richthofen which he described as his "lovely red bird". Ronny Bar produced a profile of this a while back showing the aircraft entirely overpainted in red, and this provoked some discussion on The Aerodrome. Bottom line is that the all-red scheme is definitely highly speculative but IMO it looks great and Aviattic produced a set of decals for this scheme which I will be using.
It is possible that this DVIIF is in the 4250/18 to 4449/18 series, as JGI received a batch from this series in the July/August timeframe which is when LvR was flying his "lovely red bird". There is a photo of him standing in front of a dark coloured DVIIF which has the cowling arrangement from this series, so that's good enough for me. This photo could be his "lovely red bird" but we don't know for sure.
This aircraft was not in service for long under LvR. He was known to have scored two victories in it but then crashed it on landing, damaging the wing. So weathering will be kept very subtle on this one. This will be a "quick" OOB build as I need a relaxing build after spending so long focused on my "Gassed" diorama......Let's hope it pans out that way.
I had already started this when the GB was announced so don't have any photos of the box and kit before it was started. But most of the interior parts and engine are done, so here's a few photos of where I am at:
