FCM 72-016: Albatros D.III/D.V

This new sheet from FCM Decals covers no fewer than ten different aircraft. The majority of them have natural wood fuselages, though the number with lozenge on the wings or a doped camo scheme are about evenly split. Due to the way the instructions are done, I have shown only six of the ten but will cover the rest in the write-up. For kits, the Roden or Eduard offerings are recommended. I will remind folks that both Revell and Airfix, to name a couple, also did these planes.

Going for the left side first, we have the Jasta 46W plane of Eric Gurgenz from April 1948 with the nice yellow and green striped empennage.

Next, in red and green is Wilhelm Gueke's Jasta 5 plane from February 1918. This aircraft had a big white G on the wings

The first D.III is Wfw. Wittenfeld's Jasta 50 plane from January 1918 with the nice black and white fuselage band.

Kurt Petzinia's Jasta 32b plane from September 1917 is next. This one has his initials prominently placed on his black tailed D. III.

With the purple rudder is Ernst Udet's D.III when he was a Lt. with Jasta 37 in 1917. This aircraft has angled black and white stripes on the horizontal stabilizer.

The final image is Karl Bedo's Flik 24 plane from November 1917.

Not shown is Udet's black D. V with 'LO' on the side and a U on the wing from 1917. This aircraft also has his black and white striped horizontal stabs. The next one, also in black with a white flower on the side is the D. V of Otto Kissenberth with Jasta 16b in 1917. Karl Emil Shafer's red and black D. III with Jasta 28w in May 1917 is next with the final scheme being the overall red D.III of Godwin Brumowski with Flik 41j in August 1917. This aircraft has a skull on the fuselage side.

The decals themselves are superbly printed by Microscale and from the look of it, you should be able to do at least three planes from the sheet. The instructions are in full color and show all the details of the various aircraft, including any horizontal stabilizer markings. The color table includes generic and conjectural FS 595 equivalent information

In all, a superb sheet for the small scale WWI fan. I am sure this will increase Albatros sales!

October 2012

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