Didn't we have this debate this time last year [img]

i had my little red baron toy plane and loved it more than any other  ......
...........
i guess i just really liked that plane

1917
September 1 -- Richthofen scores his 60th victory, his first in the Dr.I triplane. On September 6th, he took a leave of convalescence, and when he returned in the next month he went back to flying the Albatros D.V.
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1918
April: Richthofen achieves two victories flying Fokker Dr.1 triplane (number 425/17). Though he flew biplanes for nearly all of his career, and most of these were only partly painted red, it is the Dr.1 triplane, blood-red from cowl to tail, which is commonly associated with the Red Baron.

\The legend of the Red Baron in his all-red Fokker Triplane owes more to a cartoon strip & a pop record than the truth.

I always understood the Red Baron was a cool calculated killer. Only way to survive & he was an experienced huntsman like most of the nobility. A good fighter pilot will shoot you in the back without you knowing he's there. That's his job. A large percentage of his victims were either inferior two-seat reconnaissance types or rookies. From what I've read over the years, chivalry in the air in WWI is mostly myth. This might have been so in the early days before aircraft carried armament.

lol there's a pop record?

Snoopy vs. The Red Baron
1966
The Royal Guardsmen

After the turn of the century
In the clear blue skies over Germany
Came a roar and a thunder men had never heard
Like the scream and the sound of a big war bird

Up in the sky, a man in a plane
Baron von Richthofen was his name
Eighty men tried, and eighty men died
Now they're buried together on the countryside

Chorus: Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more
The Bloody Red Baron was rollin' out the score
Eighty men died tryin' to end that spree
Of the Bloody Red Baron of Germany

In the nick of time, a hero arose
A funny-looking dog with a big black nose
He flew into the sky to seek revenge
But the Baron shot him down--"Curses, foiled again!"

Chorus

Now, Snoopy had sworn that he'd get that man
So he asked the Great Pumpkin for a new battle plan
He challenged the German to a real dogfight
While the Baron was laughing, he got him in his sight

That Bloody Red Baron was in a fix
He'd tried everything, but he'd run out of tricks
Snoopy fired once, and he fired twice
And that Bloody Red Baron went spinning out of sight

Chorus

Fade on chorus second time

Actually there was more than one. Probably before your time.
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