Pfalz D.IIIa Ribtapes

Hello,
I am starting to build a Pfalz D.IIIa model, but I wasn't sure what color the ribtapes are supposed to be. The fabric is lozenge. Also, should it be 4-color or 5 color? Can anyone help me? Thank you and have a good day.

[Patrick]

Most photos of the Pfalz D.IIIa where the lozenge pattern can be seen relatively clearly show 5-color lozenge fabric with 5-color lozenge rib tapes. There are no doubt exceptions to this (possibly some 4-color?), just not as well documented with photos. I've never seen any photo showing a D.IIIa with patterned fabric using anything other than lozenge patterned rib tapes.

Thank you!

[Dan_San_Abbott]

RC-Pfalzflyer:
The Pfalz Flugzeugwerke always used 5 color fabric and used cut strips of five color printed fabric to cover the ribs stitching.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

[Patrick]

The Pfalz Flugzeugwerke always used 5 color fabric and used cut strips of five color printed fabric to cover the ribs stitching.

Dan San -- the Herris book on the Pfalz shows Paul Bäumer's D.VIII with four-color pattern on the wings. Although I think several of the color profiles in this book have problems, the b&w photos of Bäumer's plane look like they could have four-color wings (and I admit, I haven't done a scan-enhance-&-close-look at these in Photoshop).

I does appear that the photo record of the Pfalz D.IIIa & later models shows a lot of five-color fabric (where it can be seen clearly; many of these photos, as you know, have poor detail quality). But the photo record is certainly vastly incomplete, especially for Pfalz products. So, how can you be so sure that Pfalz Flugzeugwerke always used five-color? Is this documented somewhere? I feel that it's possible for Pfalz to have used four-color fabric on planes that escaped photography -- given the war time shortages of materials that Germany experienced, I'm certain Pfalz would have used any Idflieg-approved fabric provided to them just to get the planes built & shipped.

[Lyle]

Hi,
Allow me to chime in here...there is a certain polygon found only in 5-color lozenge that's shaped..well, for wont of a better term, like a coffin! Anyway, its color allows it to show up well on ortho film, and thus helps identify whether you're looking at either 4-color or 5-color. On Bäumer's Pfalz D.VIII, you can see this polygon between the two interplane struts towards the top wing's tip. This photo is the middle one on page 80 of the FMP book.

I would only say that the odds of Pfalz ever covering a plane in 4-color fabric would be highly unlikely, but not impossible. It's just the photo evidence says otherwise. The fabric procurement records would be the most reliable evidence of what was going on at the Pfalz Flugzeugwerke, if such a document exists.

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Patrick:
Lyle is correct, it is five color fabric. At first it looks like it was over-painted. However, it is light reflecting on the surface.
The Pfalz Flugzeugwerke when they used lozenge printed fabric, in all the aircraft I have studied, Pfalz D.IIIa, D.VIII, D.XII, D.XIV and the D.XV, in every photograph that the fabric was descernible, it was the dark upper pattern on tops and sides and the light pattern on the undersurface. Always the rib tapes were cut strips of the lozenge fabric.
Blue skies,
Dan-San