Undoubtedly the most famous Dr.1 pilot was Baron Manfred von Richtofen. Widely known as the “Red Baron”, von Richtofen was officially credited with 80 kills, 19 of them while flying a Dr.1.

Richtofen became commander of the fighter squadron Jasta 11 in January 1917, where he flew the Albatross D.II and D.III. When he became a squadron commander, Richthofen took the flamboyant step of having his Albatros painted red.

That would go on to be his iconic, red-painted aircraft, although not all of them were entirely red, nor was the “red” necessarily the brilliant scarlet that legend would suggest. Other pilots in Jasta 11 soon took to painting parts of their aircraft red, and their “official” was to make their leader less conspicuous, and to avoid him being singled out in a fight.

In practice, red coloration became a unit identification. Richtofen continued to use red aircraft when he began to fly the Dr.1, hence the iconic “Red Baron” Fokker Triplane.