Not a photo - but a colour sketch from a Russian source.
Same source - Albatros
Sighted : The elusive soviet Black Fokker.
Not a photo - but a colour sketch from a Russian source.
Same source - Albatros
The Black Fokker can sound very menacing.
Yours is from the Russian Civil War but the Germans had a whole squadron of them. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Fokker.../dp/1906502285
Black Fokker & White Albatros
Not only Soviets and Germans used black D.VIIs.
"We do not stop playing when we get old, but we get old when we stop playing."
Ah, but can this source be traced to a specific phase of the Russian Civil War? Would be cool if it could.
Shh, don't go reminding people about the Polish ones (types Dom, thinking he may need to change his D.VII entry now....)
(As an aside, I still think the Russian Civil War one is apocryphal. The Germans on the other hand, definitely did have a squadron of them. Just not the squadron that Black Fokker Leader is about - theirs weren't particularly black....)
No, just half-a**ed black!Originally Posted by Dom S
(As an aside, I still think the Russian Civil War one is apocryphal. The Germans on the other hand, definitely did have a squadron of them. Just not the squadron that Black Fokker Leader is about - theirs weren't particularly black....
I know the crew you're on about, Dom........................
Yes, I've seen your gallery....
That's a great book!
If you can grab a copy you will enjoy it.
It's actually very dark green.
<- runs for cover
Which would be particular shade of that green colour?
Andrzej, were those fokkers used in Polish - Soviet War on both sides? They would be nice addition to my Nieuport squadrons. I found some Soviet ones, but only from year 1923.Not only Soviets and Germans used black D.VIIs
Shouldn't that be a very very very very very dark green?
What? So very, very, very dark that it's black?Shouldn't that be a very very very very very dark green?
Not if you look very closely. (Dougal and Ted talking about black socks that are actually very very very very very dark blue)
These aircraft may be the same colour Inter-City trains used to be painted which wasn't black. It wasn't grey ... It was black grey! I know this colour better as Humbrol 185 even to this day. Humbrol stopped producing tins of this paint towards the end of the 90s but the colour should have been resurrected in the same fashion that rail blue was by a OO Gauge / N Gauge paint manufacturer: Well, I would have thought so anyway ...
I think Tim nails this colour description-wise perfectly because of it's not quite this and not quite that-ness! But I have been watching this thread and thinking 'INTERCITY Livery' all along. So hopefully this may shed some light on what colour these aircraft may have been - obscure I know but I hope it helps
Last edited by Tonx; 12-12-2015 at 10:34. Reason: Include photo.
I think we may be overanalysing no actual evidence here - the Soviet "black" Fokker is oft-mentioned but completely undocumented - personally I'm inclined to think that there simply wasn't one, and that it's a mis-ID of a dark green machine, but so far as I'm aware there's no photographic evidence whatsoever, so feel free to do one in black, charcoal grey, dark green, navy blue or whatever.
Several Polish machines, on the other hand, are pretty reliably rendered as having at least partial black fuselages, while for the Germans Jasta 40 had mainly black fuselages (white tails) with lozenge pattern wings, while Jasta 7 had all-black fuselages and lozenge wings, later going to pretty much entirely black, as even the wings were painted over in the last few months of the war. Jasta 40 is pretty well documented - Jasta 7 much less so, especially in the "all black" period, but there are a couple of flightline photos that clearly confirm it.
Leutnant Josef Jacobs, who commanded Jasta 7, seems to have liked black aircraft. Another interesting fact about him was that he had a captured Sopwith Camel engine fitted to his black Fokker Dr.1 to give it more speed.
50 were delivered to the USSR post-war, arriving in 1922. There are many photos of them in an air display in 1923.
However.... there's photo evidence of a few in Soviet service that probably date before that. I'm trying to get a confirmed date on this photo of a lineup of Nieuports and Spads, with 2 D.VIIs in the foreground.
http://www.historynet.com/biplane-ba...-civil-war.htmAfter firing on a Nieuport, Aten had to take evasive action to avoid a stricken White D.H.9, its pilot slumped in his cockpit. “I pulled the Camel into a vertical turn and swerved as the flaming mass plummeted past. As I watched, the observer jumped, tumbling down to the river like a trapezist who had missed his grab for the bar.” The D.H.9 had been shot down by a black Fokker, whose pilot then lined up his sights on an already engaged Kinkead. He raked the flight commander’s Camel with a long burst, narrowly missing the pilot.
http://www.airforce.ru/history/chronology/August 1918: In the Red Air Detactment at Kazan, a Nieuport sports personal insignia almost identical to that of one Heinrich Zempel, former pilot of Jasta 65, lending credence to rumours in the RAF that German mercenaries are flying for the Bolsheviks. Some German pilots who were members of the Spartak Union (a German communist faction) are known to have, in fact, joined the Reds, but no details of their Soviet service are known. In addition, a few Austrian or German ex-POWs also serve as pilots in the Red Air Fleet during this time (1349)
November 1918 : Armistice; end of WW I and subsequent Bolshevik reoccupation of territory abandoned the Central Powers, although German forces are allowed to remain in Latvia and Estonia as a 'bulwark' against communist expansion. After the War, some aircraft are flown by volunteers of the Grenzschutz Ost (Border Protection East) force against the Red Army in defense of German nationals in the Baltic states and on Germany's eastern borders. Former Jasta ace Rudolph Bertold is one such volunteer who serves in an air unit of the para-military 'Freikorps', defending his country from the scourge of Bolshevism. It is known that these 'Police Squadrons' were equipped with Siemens-Schuckert D.IIIs and IVs, as well as Fokker D.VIIs. (Details of these operations are extremely obscure and as yet unavailable) (1349)
The Red Air Fleet re-equips some squadrons with modern aircraft (Fokker D.VIIs) abandoned on former German airfields. Red Air Fleet strength at 52 squadrons. Shielded by the Czechs, the Whites have built up powerful armies. Lenin's Bolshevik armies now face war on three fronts: Gen.Yudenich and the Allies in the north, Gens. Wrangel and DenikinTs forces in the south, as well as Adm. Kolchack and the Czech Legion in the east (1349)
The problem is that source 1349 might be Aten.
Dom S http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/sho...l=1#post382170The Black Fokker(s) over Tsaritsyn and for that matter, the RCW were complete fiction. The reference of the Fokker started in "Last Train Over Rostov Bridge" by Captain Marion Aten. Recently (2011) a new edition was released and I worked with Mike Aten, a relative, on the facts and fiction of the book. Mike was able to interview a few people with first hand knowledge of the book's writing and notes that went into it and the lean toward fiction is clear. The book was a daring WWI style romantic adventure based on the real life of Aten in russia. I also translated the russian book "Aircraft of the Civil War" and those authors were certain of the fiction involved as Soviet documents of aircraft on that front were rather good. It is amazing how Aten's 1961 work of historical fiction has managed to crept into other books as factual references. The worst one is that Aten was an aces - he was not.
There was a great deal of air action over Tsaritsyn but it was mostly new Camels and DH.9s against old and worn Nieuports and other junk the Reds could get to fly. Note that the Reds for lack of aviation fuel used anything that would burn and ruined a few engines that way.
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&r...2Fthebriti.pdfIn September the ‘C’ flight was strengthened with the ‘B’ Flight equipped with Sopwith Camel fighters. Probably the best fighters of the time flown by experienced ‘ace’ pilots were a most welcome supplement to Denikin’s air arm. At first, these fighters were needed to protect the bombers against dangerously increasing Bolshevik air activity. The Camels engaged in fierce air battles with Bolshevik Albatrosses and Fokkers possibly flown by German mercenaries. ‘They were far too good to be Bolshies,’ reported one pilot. Even though there were a few German pilots in the Red air force, the Royal Air Force won the battle and continued to dominate the skies of southeast Russia.
That's based on British war diaries of the time though.
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