Tuesday, February 11, 2014

White 14 of Reimo Emmerstorfer

http://www.cptfarrels.com/blog/Bf109G-8_White-14_NAG12_1200.jpg
A lot of photos of this aircraft and its pilot was taken at Mostar in the spring of 1944. The camouflage is obviously a non standard one, applied some time after the aicraft left the factory as the airframe lacks all stencilling apart form a crudely painted fuel triangle. 

According to Dave Wadmans book "Aufklärer" the ground crew seemingly recalled having painted the units aircraft in a grey and a brown color. This has been interpreted in many ways but I'm confident that the brown was not RLM 79 as both the darker topcolors (there most certainly are two) are almost as dark as the RLM 66 of the head armour. I've opted for RLM 75 combined with a brown violet inspired by the color seen on contemporary II./JG51 aircraft photographed in the Balkans as well.

From the nose up to and including the movable part of the canopy the pattern seems more deliberate and careful than on the rear fuselage. On the front part, studying the spray patterns it appears as if the first color applied was RLM 75, followed by RLM 76 (paler than the original 76 on the undersurfaces) and finally the brown was applied. On the rear fuselage it seems as if the RLM 76 was sprayed directly on the original mottle and then the brown was sprayed over in cross-hatch fashion.  

6 comments:

FalkeEins said...

Hi Anders

..that's very nice.. of course...probably a lot less brown than I'd imagined ..but then I'm no colours expert ..FWIW my piece on Emmerstorfer is here

http://falkeeins.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/messerschmitt-aufklarer-recce-bf-109s.html

Eduardo Brettas said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eduardo Brettas said...

Hi Andres,
Again a beautiful interpretation of this bird. Congratulations!
Can be seen an antenna on top of the fuselage in FalkeEins - Luftwaffe this photo:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_fhZZ63PRjhQ/S82qdo0r1qI/AAAAAAAAAy0/WAmvV497kPM/s1600/emmers3.jpg
I do not know if this antenna can be seen in other photos.
Um abraço!

Anders said...

Well spotted there Eduardo! I hadn't noticed. I'm having a hard time seeing whehter it's an antenna standing "on its own" or if it goes up to the aerial wire.

Neil, there's no way to be certain off course, but the brown was certainly not RLM 79. That's really all one can be quite certain about...

Eduardo Brettas said...

Anders,
I think there is a small wire connecting the two antennas.

[IMG]http://i1096.photobucket.com/albums/g326/Parentoni/HeimoEmmerstorferObltBf109G-8_zps307667c9.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1096.photobucket.com/albums/g326/Parentoni/HeimoEmmerstorferObltBf109G-82_zpsbc260edc.jpg[/IMG]

Anonymous said...

Hi Anders,

Eduardo is right. We can see the antenna and the small wire linked to the main wire. On other photos too.

Last, There is no gonio loop behind the mast on White 14, Anders!!! Like on many G-8s ...

Cheers, Franck.