Alb D.III 1917 withdrawal

**Honza** · 01-24-2023 00:40

Alb D.III suffered from a lower wing fluttering and breakage, and it was withdrawn in Jan 1917 for tests and a possible wing reinforcement. Do you guys know for how long? The only information i have is from Wiky (Jan 27-Feb 19), but some fellow at BGG says it was Jan - March...

**flash** · 01-24-2023 01:49

Think the Jan-Feb dates refer to the grounding order, Jan, I don't know the wording but I should think it said something along the lines of 'all Alb D.III's are grounded forthwith..'. Common sense dictates that once the problem was fixed at the factory they'd have to rescind the order so that the new ones could be flown, however, the early ones still in the field would still require the upgrades and that would take longer, so it's likely all that work was not completed until March.
MvR had a victory 24th Jan in a D.III, his next in the type was 9th March and then a brace on 2nd April; between times he made do with Alb & Halb D.II's (6 victories with each) even when some of his pilots had D.III's themselves.

**Honza** · 01-24-2023 01:56

I understand that they lifted the grounding on Feb 19, which means the old one could go up, right? They were just told not to dive so wildly, they knew where the problem was and they could somehow avoid it. And then, the reinforced Albs may have started pouring back in March.

**flash** · 01-24-2023 02:11

Originally Posted by Honza

I understand that they lifted the grounding on Feb 19, which means the old one could go up, right? They were just told not to dive so wildly, they knew where the problem was and they could somehow avoid it...

The fact that MvR didn't fly one for Feb & most of March would suggest to me that was not the case.
I think if someone had said to us 'We don't know how much damage this plane has and the wings might fall off; now off you go into combat, just don't dive it so hard..' They'd get a very short two word answer !