FW190 BLACK 18

[meeterhunter]

Fw 190D-9, W.Nr 211040, “Blue? / Black 18”, II./JG 2, Central Germany, May 1945.
Please can you tell me where this aircraft crashed or was abandoned in Germany and is there a story with it?
Thanks

[Stig Jarlevik]

Meterhunter

According to Jerry Crandall, this D-9 was black 18 and found on a wooden pallet near Frankfurt (exact place not specified). The digit 8 was lighter in value than the digit 1 and the horizontal bar was partially destroyed.

Cheers
Stig

[meeterhunter]

Hi Stig,
Very interesting indeed, thanks for that. Do you mean? when they painted the
numbers on the side of aircraft, the no '1' was bolder than the no '8'?

Cheers, Don

[Stig Jarlevik]

Not sure if there is a photo of this one or not, but what I believe Jerry means is the colour and even if classified as black 18 he may have thoughts that the digit 1 had a darker shade of black than the digit 8, possible even two different colours. At the end of WW 2 I doubt anyone in the Luftwaffe followed any 'standard' protocol, they used what they had.

In this case the aircraft may have been 'digit 8' somewhere and after transfer to JG 2 they decided it had to be digits 18 instead and added a 1 in front, but having not the correct paint they simply used what they had. Of course the digits could have had a different wear and tear as well. Mind you this is just two hypothesises of mine! (BTW does more than one hypothesis spell that way? Not sure I want to say that word quickly five times.... )

Cheers
Stig

[meeterhunter]

I see, thanks Stig. Me neither!

Regards, Don