AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 18 / 146

Plate 18 of 146 · Great War · Single-seat fighter

Albatros D.Va

Albatros D.Va, painted as ‘D.7343/17’, the Albatros D.Va reproduction displayed by the RAF Museum at Hendon: the German single-seat fighter of 1917–18 that equipped most of the Jagdstaffeln in the last year of the war, a sesquiplane with a small lower wing on V-shaped interplane struts, an oval semi-monocoque fuselage of moulded birch plywood with a large spinner, a 180 hp Mercedes D.IIIa six-cylinder inline engine with its cylinder heads exposed, a radiator in the upper-wing centre section and twin Spandau machine guns; shown as built by The Vintage Aviator in New Zealand in 2011 around an original Mercedes engine and finished in the colours of Vizefeldwebel Karl Jentsch’s aircraft of Jasta 61 in 1918: varnished plywood fuselage and fin, grey-green spinner and nose panels, a black band behind the white-bordered fuselage cross, Jentsch’s black and white star, a white rudder with a black cross and the serial ‘D.7343/17’ on the fin, olive green and mauve upper surfaces over pale blue undersides, crosses on top of the upper wing and under the lower wing, and cream struts and wheel covers.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as ‘D.7343/17’, the Albatros D.Va reproduction displayed by the RAF Museum at Hendon: the German single-seat fighter of 1917–18 that equipped most of the Jagdstaffeln in the last year of the war, a sesquiplane with a small lower wing on V-shaped interplane struts, an oval semi-monocoque fuselage of moulded birch plywood with a large spinner, a 180 hp Mercedes D.IIIa six-cylinder inline engine with its cylinder heads exposed, a radiator in the upper-wing centre section and twin Spandau machine guns; shown as built by The Vintage Aviator in New Zealand in 2011 around an original Mercedes engine and finished in the colours of Vizefeldwebel Karl Jentsch’s aircraft of Jasta 61 in 1918: varnished plywood fuselage and fin, grey-green spinner and nose panels, a black band behind the white-bordered fuselage cross, Jentsch’s black and white star, a white rudder with a black cross and the serial ‘D.7343/17’ on the fin, olive green and mauve upper surfaces over pale blue undersides, crosses on top of the upper wing and under the lower wing, and cream struts and wheel covers. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.2 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (replica); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Albatros D.Va modelled here.

History

The Albatros D.Va

The Albatros D.V was Robert Thelen’s refinement of the D.III, which had given the German fighter squadrons the upper hand over the Western Front in the spring of 1917. It kept the D.III’s sesquiplane wings, a full-span upper wing over a much smaller single-spar lower wing joined by V-shaped struts, but had a new fuselage of oval section, a shell of thin birch plywood moulded over light frames and finished in clear varnish, with a large spinner and the six-cylinder Mercedes engine half exposed in the nose. Twin Spandau machine guns fired through the propeller, and the radiator sat in the centre of the upper wing.

The D.V reached the Jagdstaffeln from May 1917, but it was barely faster than the D.III and it inherited that aircraft’s weakness: in a hard dive the narrow lower wing could twist and break up. The D.Va that followed from the autumn of 1917 had a strengthened wing and fuselage and the higher-compression Mercedes D.IIIa, and was built by Albatros at Johannisthal and by its subsidiary OAW at Schneidemühl. Manfred von Richthofen was flying an Albatros D.V when he was wounded in the head on 6 July 1917.

Around 900 D.Vs and some 1,600 D.Vas were built, and in May 1918 more than a thousand of the two were in service on the Western Front, more than any other German fighter. By then they were outclassed by the S.E.5a, the Camel and the SPAD XIII, and the Fokker D.VII began to replace them that summer, but Albatroses served until the Armistice and a few flew with the Polish air force after the war.

This airframe

Albatros D.Va “D.7343/17”

D.7343/17The airframe modelled

The RAF Museum’s Albatros is a flying reproduction built in 2011 by The Vintage Aviator Ltd at Wellington, New Zealand, registered ZK-TVD, and powered by an original Mercedes D.III from the museum’s own stores, dated April 1918 and restored for the purpose. It first flew on 1 January 2012, flew at Old Warden after shipment to Britain that summer, and has been on display at Hendon since late 2012. It wears the colours of the D.V flown by Vizefeldwebel Karl Jentsch of Jasta 61 between June and August 1918, who scored seven victories and survived the war. The model shows it as displayed: varnished plywood fuselage and fin, a grey-green spinner and nose panels, a black band behind the white-bordered fuselage cross with Jentsch’s split black and white star ahead of it, a white rudder with a black cross, ‘D.7343/17’ on the fin, olive green and mauve upper surfaces over pale blue undersides, and cream struts and wheel covers. No photograph shows the camouflage on the starboard wings or the top of the tailplane, so those are assumed.

See it at Royal Air Force Museum London

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Albatros D.Va in 2 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 146 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.