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.