A month ago I would have sworn to anyone that would listen that there was no way that Erich Hartmanns last Bf109 would be wearing the black tulip on the nose as it would have been too dangerous to wear and too time-consuming to paint given the situation on the eastern front. Then a man finds a photoalbum at a market and by a stroke of luck he knows the significance of the photo he's got in front of himself and all the sudden there's proof that Hartmann's G-10 did indeed have a black tulip painted on the nose! Everything aft of the fuselage cross is still guesswork though but contemporary I./JG52 aircraft show no yellow bands or rudders. The fuselage cross is in the smaller size introduced by Erla somewhere during the production run of their G-10 series. It's not certain that the undersurfaces of the wings were natural metal though.
I first found the photos of the aicraft at Neil Page's blog
here They were originally found and posted by Flavio at the
Luftwaffe Experten Messageboard
Updated 18/11 2013: Updated the profile in preparation for the release of the Revell Bf109G-10 Erla that will contain decals for this aircraft. According to the boxart Revell has likely got the tailfin camo wrong as they depict a style used by Mtt Regensburg that was rare on Erla built aircraft. I've changed the fin too as the camo I depicted earlier seems to have been a rare case and not as typical as I first thought.
Hi Anders
ReplyDeleteSuperb work. As you say one photo can change everything! Dare I suggest he could of flown a K!? There's the famous K with the red tulip markings so you never know.
If you had to speculate on a camo scheme for a very late war K at Nemecky Brod he could of flown what would you suggest?
My thinking is that given Hartmann's status he'd have the best available aircraft and at the time, that might well have been an Erla built G-10. They were more aerodynamically refined than the Mtt Regensburg K-4 and likely built with better quality as the Mtt Regensburg K-4's were assembled by slave labour in poor conditions.
ReplyDeleteStill, that's not what you asked for, I think if I had to chose I would do a late style K-4 with the low demarcation line camo. That seems to be the most common style on the few JG52 K-4's that are known.
Thanks for the reply Anders, so would you say similar to Adolf Borchers machine?
ReplyDeleteWhat are your thoughts on the red Tulip K? I know Hartmann stated he would let junior pilots fly his personal machine as it would give some measure of protection, is it possible this machine was some sort of decoy to protect junior pilots? Could explain the white stripes on the tail surface?
Fantastic work great inspiration for the modeller.