[Micke D]

Hi Dora fans!

I must say that I have to disagree with both David E. Brown and Eric Larger about this new photo.
I do not think that the new EBay photo of the “White 57” loaded with R4M rockets and the older one shown in Experten Decals No. 3, are the same aircraft.

I think that they most likely have belonged to the same unit and have been photographed at the same place and time.
But I guess that it will be difficult to say which unit they must have belonged to, what might be a tail band on the photo in E-D No. 3 is certainly not present on the photo of “White 57”, so it doesn’t easily say what unit these planes came from.

I can’t really say that I think the trees positions are the same in the two photos. “White 57” from the new photo looks to be in a clearing, and the Dora from E-D No. 3 seems to be farther in under the trees.

David E. Brown says that the photo that they published in Experten Decals No. 3 is the same plane as “White 57”, but photographed at an earlier date, with canopy and wheel covers attached.
I have read somewhere that allied troops removed the canopies from captured Fw 190’s because of the explosive charge under the canopy. But I can’t really see the reason why anyone should remove the lower wheel covers and the canopy and not the rockets on “White 57”?

I’m not sure if the photo of “White 57” shows a D-9 or D-11, -12, -13. The supercharger air intake seems to be of the longer, bigger type used on the Jumo 213F equipped D-11, -12, -13’s, but it’s difficult to say with branches from a small tree covering parts of it.
I think the upper part of the nose of “White 57” looks flatter than a D-9.
I’m sure that the Dora in E-D No. 3 is a D-9, because it has MG 131’s in front of the wind screen.

We know from a photo, in Axel Urbanke’s “Green Hearts first in combat with the Dora 9”, that JG 26 received R4M rockets at the very last days of the war. And from written sources, shown by Brown and Wadman on Experten Decals website, that JG 301 was going to receive some D-9’s with R4M rockets from JagdGruppe 10, who had been tested this rocket system on the Fw 190D.
Both JG 26 and JG 301 seem to have been very good at painting tail bands on all or at least most of their planes, so the lack of tail bands on these planes could possibly be because for some reason they never left JGr 10, or somehow founds their way to Verbandführerschule General der Jagdflieger.

I really hope that it will be possible to see the W.Nr. of this plane some day.

Best wishes,
Micke D