Another 'new' photo of the 1./NJGr.10 Bf 109 G-6/AS 'Red 2' has come to light. Anders Hjortsberg has kindly modified his artwork for the Luftwaffe blog. Note the enlarged swastika painted across the rudder hinge line and WNr. 166277 across the top of the tailfin with the 77 in bold.
This 'Red 2' has come from the archive of the former Lufthansa B747 pilot and researcher Hartmut Küper.
Küper has already published two volumes in his "Bonn-Hangelar: Geschichte eines Flugplatzes.." book series. In the course of his research he has been in contact with an aircraft mechanic by the name of Trapp - who worked on Friedrich-Karl Müller's machines at this airfield during the summer of 1944 and forwarded the following rather amazing image which, now for the first time as mentioned above, shows a Werknummer rather crudely painted across the top of a tail-fin above Müller's scoreboard.
Anders Hjortsberg, who prepared the artwork of the 'original' 'Red 2' which first appeared here some 10 years ago and which can now be widely found on decal sheets and kit box artwork - although not with a detailed rudder scoreboard or WNr - has studied the image and produced the following revised profile. Anders writes;
" ..here's an updated version of the profile. I've added the enlarged swastika and the crude W.Nr. I've updated my templates with new shapes and such since I first did the Müller machine so here it is, in my current standard with bolder "77" and a new fuselage cross, as I realised that Müllers machine had the slightly broader angles sometimes seen on Mtt Regensburg aircraft. I dislike doing these kind of markings as in the end, unless you know the photo it is based on, it just looks as if I'm a sloppy artist !.." (Click on the artwork to get a large wide screen view)
And the 'new' mystery? The rudder decoration appears to be the same as previously illustrated here when this artwork of 'Red 2' was last updated in March 2023. 25 victory markings, the 24th displaying the inscription 'Mosquito' (English-language spelling!).
Or is it?
According to evidence presented in Peter Schmoll's "Me 109 Produktion und Einsatz" (a report into the structural integrity of the tall wooden tail built by sub-contractors) the WNr 166 batch may have contained some G-14s as well as G-6 and G-6/AS machines. Note the non-standard camouflage on the horizontal stabiliser - a sort of 'stripey' effect- which seems to suggest a non-standard or sub-contracted tail and horizontal stab. This indicates to one informed commentator at least that perhaps F-K Müller had a second machine at his disposal. After all, most unit leaders certainly did. And as he suggested to me; " Müller may have had a second back-up machine - the last two digits of the Werknummer were in BOLD to easily distinguish between the two machines.." Of course there may or may not be logbook evidence to back up this theory - but then again, even if there isn't, Müller only flew a handful of sorties in 'Red 2' anyway...
Anders again;".. The area around the cockpit clearly shows factory applied camouflage in a pattern you'd expect from Mtt Regensburg at the time. Yet the tailplane is not standard at all. At first I thought that this was perhaps a conversion from Erla Antwerp but those would have been all RLM 76 and not shown original camouflage on the rest of the fuselage. So I guess the tailplane was perhaps repainted or replaced at one time or another. So Red 2 could still be 166277 although two different aircraft would still be possible. The main wings might be painted in a rare, very simple scheme sometimes seen on Regensburg Gustavs that I haven't been able to nail down exactly. I've yet to find an explanation for the tailplane though... .."
