Herman Graf red tulip nose G6

[thierry laurent]

Hi,

 

one question for Luftwaffe afficionados! Yesterday evening, I checked Eagle cals decals for this famous G6. I compared with various other sources including the recent Japanese Modeller's eye book about G6/G14s. In this book, the profile and text stress the fact that the upper part of the canopy had an added glass bulge with a rearview mirror.

 

This modification is more clearly showed in the old Monogram book about the 109 (the hardbound one in landscape format). However, I'm a little bit puzzled as no other reference I own, including the excellent Eagle cals decals instruction sheet show such a modification?! Obviously, when the canopy is opened, only a starboard side view may show it clearly!

 

Any insight???

[Chris/Germany]

Hy Thierry,

why don´t you try to ask "the master himself" Jerry Crandall from Eagle Editions, I´ m sure if anybody knows something ´bout that mirror then it´s him.

 

cheers

 

Chris

[Judyc]

Hi Thierry;

 

Thanks for your nice comments about our EagleCals.

 

Like most prominent pilots, Herman Graf flew more than one airplane while he was in JG 50. We have several photos of Graf in and around his aircraft and others, plus there are several photos of him in Christer Bergstrom's book Graf and Grizlawski that we published. The one photo in G&G showing Graf in the cockpit appears to have the oval bulge with a rearview mirror. Another photo of a G-6 slown by Graf clearly shows no bulge and mirror, but it does not appear to have the Red Tulips. Unfortunately there is not enough of the photo to see if it is in fact his Red Tulip G-6. Another photo we have in our collection shows Graf sitting in the cockpit of a G-6 with the Red Hunter emblem under the cockpit that has no bulge and mirror. There is not a clear photo that I know about of his Red Tulip G-6 that shows this area due to the fact that the canopies are open. So, we did not include that in our decal profile as we could not prove this matter one way or the other. We know for sure that Grizlawski's White 10 did not have this bulge and rearview mirror. I hope this helps answer your questions.

Jerry

[thierry laurent]

Thanks a lot!

 

I suspected this (this confirms my own picture analysis) but am happy you replied and confirmed it. As there's a doubt, I won't try replicating this mirror as making the teardrop bulge would be far from easy. Accordingly, finding a way to avoid it is rather interesting -)