Ernst Udet's Colour Choices

[Pips]

Have been perusing Udet's various aircraft and, please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that as the war went on he started to use red more often as the predominate colour on his aircraft. Culminating in the SSW D.III 8350/17 so brilliantly illustrated by Dan San here: SSW D.III 8350/17 - The Aerodrome Gallery

Could it be that perhaps he saw himself as the successor to Manfred von Richthofen? And was trying to draw the mantle onto himself?

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Pips:
It is an interesting thought, most of the aircraft Ltn. Udet while leading Jasta 4 were red and white or just red. The first all red was SSW D.III
8350/17 with the exceptionof the landing gear struts, under cowl and the rudder. Red may have in his mind became the hallmark of the Leading Ace, but red was used by other pilots who were far short of being a leading ace, Ltn. August Raben comes to my mind. His Fok.D.VII was all red with a white empennage. Red was a fairly common color used by various German pilots. All red, was not common.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

[Pips]

Dan,
Your absolutely right when you mention that red was a very popular colour indeed, and used by many aces in various combinations on their aeroplanes.

It just struck me as an interesting development with Udet (who in his time used many colour combinations) that as he progressed up the scoring ladder he seems to lean more and more to adopting red as his primary colour, ending in that brilliantly coloured SSW you mentioned (and illustrated so well!).

My personal preference would have been for a black and yellow combination probably using broad stripes all over - bit like a bee. I've never come across that combination, do you know if it was used?