Two days later he achieved his sixty-first, a Sopwith Pup fought down to an altitude of just 50 metres, noting, “The Fokker Dreidecker F.1 102/17 was undoubtedly better and more reliable than the English machine”. “Most probably the English pilot had taken me for an English dreidecker,” he wrote, “as the observer stood upright in the plane without thinking of making use of his gun”. With four of his Jasta he attacked and downed an R.E.8 artillery observation aeroplane near Zonnebeke in Belgium. “By association, the Dreidecker is a true aviation legend.” Von Richthofen scored his sixtieth victory, and his first in F.1 102/17, on 1 September 1917. “People who know nothing about aviation have heard of the Red Baron”, says Mikael. The Dreidecker first flew on 5 July 1917, the prototype F.1s reaching Manfred von Richthofen and Werner Voss at Jagdgeschwader 1 for combat testing later that summer.
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