[musec04]

Hi Stig,


As you said an interesting album and an interesting discussion.Being now guest free let me address a few of your points from the last post.


The main problem all of us face is that we have no dates listed anywhere.
We don't know if the Halberstadts are survivors into the 1917-18 period.
We don't know if the /18 is an indication of 1918 or not. Logic says they are, but we have no 100% proof of that.


We do know that the Halberstadt B.I survived until at least 1917 as the CL.II underwent Typenprüfung in May 1917 and entered service in August of that year.


As said earlier, I would say it is impossible to be certain of any year/date when it comes to aircraft used by schools. Even if school aircraft crashed often, they were most likely rebuilt just as fast and no doubt lasted quite a bit longer than frontline aircraft, so it is no use just saying "Oh Halberstadt B.I, it must be very early training days in the beginning of the war", because we don't know that.


Nobody has said that these photos are definitely early war.Please don't create straw dolls.The bottom line is, that if we used only written information rather than information we can reasonably deduce from what we can see in the photos- for example the photo of the CL.II or the known date of the change to the Balkenkreuz-we couldn't say anything.Why bother posting photos if not for the evidence we can gain from them.Speculation can be supported by visual evidence.



I am pretty convinced the ex manufacturers schools were using C-models as well. The further on in time we get, the difference between a B-type compared to the C-type became more and more pronounced. The latter became heavier and heavier, more marginal when it came to control, and much more specialized.




If manufacturers schools were operating C type aircraft without regular army Bestellnummern it seems a little strange that we have seen no photographic examples of this. Bear in mind that in 1918 a number of C class machines were being ordered specifically as trainers and the Rumpler C.I was one of these.While absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence your ‘I’m pretty convinced’ appears to be without any basis. Yes C types were used as trainers, but we have plentiful evidence of this for military run schools, but none for manufacturer run schools.If you have any evidence that would support C types being operated by manufacturers schools I very much look forward to seeing it and I'd be delighted to be proved wrong.




BTW there were no civil schools during the war. As soon as the short transition period was over, they were all controlled by the Army and Navy.
As I have previously pointed out civilian managed flying schools operated until the war’s end.I’m not sure why you are having trouble accepting this. But once again see precisely for Halberstadt: frontflieger.de/2-fshalberstadt.html Note that this is a separate entity from the military FEA 5: frontflieger.de/2-fea05.html. Please take a look at the lower half of this page with the Werks Militär Fliegerschulen paying particular attention to the date the schools were established. No short transistion period and some founded in 1915.


In the present case, Kees (and I) are very convinced the C-types using the /18 numbers and seen here are used by a training unit.




Who was ever arguing anything different?


Whatever is the truth here, we certainly can agree, it is a most interesting album and it has raised a number of interesting questions with a very healthy and interesting discussion in its footsteps.


Totally agree.

Regards,


Clint