imj502@csc.anu.oz.au (11/07/90)
From: imj502@csc.anu.oz.au in <1990Oct30.050259.4103@cbnews.att.com> Adrian Hurt asks about Spitfire camouflage: >One dated 1939, has brown and green upper surfaces, >black on the port underside, and white on the starboard underside. The >other, dated 1940, has duck egg green on the whole underside, and brown >and green again on the upper surfaces. But the pattern of green on the >upper surfaces is almost an exact mirror image of the pattern used on the >1939 scheme ... >So, here are the questions. Why did the RAF flip the pattern over? (I >presume, in spite of the opinion of any cynics, that it wasn't just to >annoy the people who painted the aircraft! :-) And what was the purpose >of the black and white underside in early war colour schemes? To help >the pilot tell left from right? :-) The disruptive camouflage system was adopted in two patterns, the A and B schemes where the B scheme was a mirror image of the A scheme and the two schemes were used on alternative aircraft on the production line. It was often the case that the first aircraft of a batch had the A scheme, but this was not always the case. The first Spitfire off the production line, K9787, had the A scheme and the second the B scheme. Hence the pattern did not "flip over" at any particular time. If you are modelling a particular aircraft, you will need to determine whether it had scheme A or B. On 27th April, 1939 Air Ministry Order A.154/39, amended by A.298/39 ordered that "the lower surface of the starboard plne and half the under surface of the fuelage is to be painted White. The corresponding port side is to be painted Black". This scheme continued through to 6th June 1940, when the Air Ministry ordered that all fighters would have their under surfaces painted in Sky (= Duck Egg Blue = Pale Green = Pale Blue = Duck Egg Green) in place of the Black and White scheme. The Black/White scheme proved to be too visible (although it did break up the shape of the aircraft). From: tomoo@hpmcaa.mcm.hp.com (Tomoo Taguchi) >At the beginning of the war, Fighter Command used the black and >white scheme to make the planes more visible to ground troops. As the war >progressed they realized that being invisible was better than being visible >to "friendly" flak gunners (who tended to shoot at anything at flew anyway), >so they switched to the robin's egg blue scheme. possibly true but not mentioned in my reference >From: thos@softway.sw.oz.au (Thomas Cohen) >In article <1990Nov1.023053.9665@cbnews.att.com> ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu >> >>Command in Europe. The ones in Asia (South East Asian Command?) >>even had different markings: blue circles with a white circle >>superimposed - basically the roundel with the red missing. The >>idea, I think, was to avoid confusion with Japanese markings. >I always thought that the Blue/White roundels were because they were >RAAF 'planes, although the RAAF squadrons in Europe and the desert >did use normal roundels. Any experts care to comment? >thos cohen The RAAF marking was a white disc with a blue surround (about 3/4 white, 1/4 blue in radius), but the SEAC also used something similar (white disc, blue surround (equal width) and a thin yellow circle outside (appears to be the standard European roundel with the central red disc over-painted with white). Later, the roudel for SEAC was changed to a lighter blue disc surrounded by a darker blue circle. Note that the fin flashes were white and blue early and light blue and dark blue later (same colour as the roundel). I hope that this information has been of help/interest. Ian Jamie e-mail jamie@rsc0.anu.oz.au or imj502@csc1.anu.oz.au