One of France's early aces, Jean Navarre, flew a Nieuport 11 (N576) with three broad bands on the fuselage, which I have always heard as described as blue-white-red (front to back). Here are links to three photos of it:
- http://www.thatoneplease.co/buildlog...p11shots/2.jpg
- http://www.donhollway.com/jeannavarr...-11-n576-a.jpg
- https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/jean-na...2754476368889/
And here are the colors that are normally used: https://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2014...8311948246.jpg
My struggle is that we know the front band on the rudder and the center dot on the roundels is blue, and -- as a general rule -- blue frequently comes out as a light color on these early films, whereas red comes out very dark. (The films at the time did not have equal response to all colors.) Yet in all three of those pictures, the front fuselage band looks much darker than the known-blue of the rudder and roundels. Either it's a much darker blue than the rudder and roundels, or it's not blue at all.
Does anyone have any further information on this plane? I'm leaning toward the "much darker blue" theory.
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