Aidrian

Paper drawings can sometimes be problematic as the paper used in plotters, magazines and many books is not usually a terribly stable material - it may shrink in one direction or both and not necessarily to the same degree across the page, which is why full size drawings routinely say "do not scale". The differences can be quite marked, and sometimes the only practical fix is to scan the drawing, and adjust the scale and aspect ratio to get the major dimensions right when you print. Drawings taken from aperture cards are often very wobbly indeed Printers and scanners can also give you slightly different scales in the X and Y axes which can compound the problem - CAD apps usually have a facility to re-scale a plot job in either direction to suit the plotter/printer being used.

Thanks - possibly too much NS light grey on the brain. I'll edit so some poor sod doent come across that in a few years and think that I knew what Iwas talking about...

Theere's no single correct answer. Most of this comes from carefully hoarded posts by Dana Bell who knows a thing or two about this.... For the landing gear (but not the wheels) Vought built machines kept using non specular gray for a while after the change to overall GSB, as Chrysler who made the gear had apparently laid in vast stocks of Light Gray paint. The Vought diagram below gives four options for this scheme - six if you allow for three different versions of blue. If your Corsair is to be in TSS using US equivalent colours these woudl be ANA 613 OD, 603 Sea Gray and 602 Light Gray ANA 610 Sky underneath and in the wheel wells, and the gear itself was almost certainly Non-Specular Light Gray Of curse, what happened with components that had been overhauled by the use is another matter - I blelive the standard RAF and FAA finish for repaired components that required repainting was aluminium, but don't have a definitive reference for this. The wheels themselves generally show up as a light colour even on overall blue machines, so that probably rules out all the blue shades even on machines with the landing gear finshed in GSB. It's not white, so that suggests NS light gray or more likely aluminium as some factory photos with nice fresh paint have a distinct shine which isn't something associated with NS Light Gray.This is not the modern bright silver colour usied on cars but something that looks distinctly grey at any distance other right up close. I use a mix of about 50/50 whiite and silver for this PIc

Blues were often problematic, especially when they used an ultramarine pigment, as the blue tends to bleach when mixed with zinc oxide white, which was the usual white used in this period. (Yes titanium white was well known back then, but most of it came from Norway, which made it a bit difficult to get hold of in large quantities). Prussian blue also fades in the presence of some other compounds, though the effect is slower and less startling. So, if the paint used for PRU had a significant amount of ultramarine in the mix and if the grey component contained zinc oxide, as seem almost certain, it would be likely to fade quickly. Heaing off on a tangent, this may be why the post-war roundel blue changed; the earlier version is very slightly warmer and suggests an ultramarine pigment but the 1964 version of BS381C has a new number (110) for Roundel Blue; from memory (not keen on spending an hour hunting through the shelves for what I need ) the old 1948 version (108) is called Aircraft Blue. The later colour is a very slightly cooler shade, which suggests pthalo blue, which is far more stable.

I havent seen one on a P-47 or in NW Europe before - but, yes, they were used in the Pacific; there are pics of Kiwi F4U-1Ds with a "daisy cutter" on one wing pylon and a depth charge on the other. I have sometimes wondered how they were fused; setting a hydrostatic fuse to zero feet as I read somewhere seems likely to be a bit frightening if one were to hang up.

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" - I think we might sometimes say something similar regarding some discussions of colour.

Philosophising can be illuminating sometimes, and can lead you down some very strange rabbit holes at other times. There are individual differences in perception which are not necessarily due to imperfect colour vision and which can be cultural as well as simply variations in interpretation. For example blue as a distinct colour was not known to many ancient civilisations; the dark yellows that some, like me, see as a dark greenish shade can apparetnly look brown to others - which latter, I suspect, might be one among many reasons for some of the electrons and ink (and vitriol) expended on discussions of PC10.

The book was published in 1976, reprinted some 35 years ago(???) and is not routinely available on the second hand market at prices accessible to most modellers. Two of the copies I inspected a few years ago had had the card removed by a previous owner, so do be careful if buying a used copy. Perhaps there is an unfilled need for an updated and more accessible version or at least a colour deck.

Skuas Rocs Baffins and Walruses (Walri?) are the only 1930s types I can think of that had aluminium paint on the metal parts, though the amount of visible metal on a Baffin was pretty limited . The Shark, which had a metal fuselage appears to have had Cerrux Grey paint on the fuselage.

Oooohhhh! Yes please.

Some RAF Buccaneers didn't have the covers for the hinges fitted; only the front covers were removed on some machines, both covers were taken off on others. As far as I can tell this started in the mid to late 1970s; a quick run though a collection of photos and books suggest that the remaining RN Buccaneers also had the covers removed about the same time. Photos from Thunder and Lightnings - https://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/

Ventura as noted above, or there's one from the Wellington Territorial Squadron on Xtradecal 48176. You'll want a Dallas hood as well from memory - one for the Monogram kits was issued by Falcon/Squadron, but I think this was updated while ago to suit the Tamiya kit, so may need some surgery to work with the Monogram kit. I might have an original one in the spares box if you get stuck.

Progress delayed waiting for back ordered bits. I gave up on the CMK wheels with the diamond tread tyres, they were just too skinny and the whole thing looked rather like an enormously fat man on a unicycle, Unfortunately the alternatives all seem to be backordered everywhere, so the plain tyres (ribbed with most of the tread worn off?) from the kit have been pressed into service in the interim. The canopy has a vey slight but noticeable bottle glass effect and I might go for a vacform one after all - backordered again... Added a "white" centre line tank with a bit of a dent in the nose; this combination seems very common on GSB machines. It's actually more a sort of grotty beige with chips and streaks, though the flash has overexposed it rather badly. I wonder if I need to add a little more dust and grot to the underside; I am trying to keep a bit of contrast between the top surfaces which were exposed to the sun and rain and the underside which spent most of its time shaded. I don't think I'll add the extra ferry tanks or ordnance, though I might eventually get round to making a trolley with a depth charge and a daisy cutter.

Good looks is a relative thing when thinking about some FAA types - impressive looks maybe, but with the possible exception of the Seahawk, an RN jet is not usually something I would automatically consider as an aesthetic treat. I have gnerally tended to go for wings extended, but that's just due to laziness and to the infernally cluttered look of many wingfolds, with various hydraulic lines and cylinders, locking pins, stays, and cables needing to be represented in what is often a very narrow space; getting a reasonably accurate wingfold thats strong enough to withstand occasional handling and cleaning isn't always straightforward. Some kits. like the Airfix quarter-inch scale Buccaneer and the Classic Airframes Seahawk, came with a wingfold option, but the mechanism often tends to be simplified - seeing that this area will be one of the more visible parts of the model (far more so than the cockpit) that might not be altogether a good thing. The geomery is crucial - get it right with both wings at the right angle and the wing tips level with each other and you will be thrilled with the look, but when building from raw materials it's very easy to get it slightly wrong - after a few goes trying to adjust the angle and position of several microscopic fittings you will probably want to take up Morris dancing instead. If you really want to do it, it's an ideal job for the 3D printer, but might I suggest you find away to include a way of adding a short length of piano wire or something similar to add a bit of strength?

Interesting - the same machine at a different time and place and being used by another Squadron come up othe IWM photos site. I wonder what the chances were of the same Liberator being photagraphed twice, so far apart? https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205209746

There was a book for collectors published about 25 years ago called something like "Gear Up" which goes into a lot of detail on USAAF flying clothing and equipment and has a lot of photos of headgear overalls and jackets. I seem to remember reading something about USAAF aircrew wearing RAF pattern helmets and sometimes Mk.VIII goggles when flying British types as the oxygen masks remained the RAF pattern, but the RAF helmet was used by other aircrew as well. Ahah - found what I was looking for after a few false starts Jon A Maguire, Gear Up!: Flight Clothing & Equipment of USAAF Airmen in WWII (Schiffer Military/Aviation History). Not an especially cheap book, but probably something available though a public library interloan?

To my eyes 16440 is possibly a little bit warmer than Cerrux grey as is Light Aircraft Grey. However, Nick Millman said 36440 is a good match when compared to the Cellon csample which he had access to.

Might it be worth trying eBay? https://www.ebay.com/str/miracleworldofhobby/Microdesign-Russia/_i.html?_storecat=33039867018. No affliation/reccomendation or experience with the seller , just something I stumbled on while looking for something else entirely and bookmarked just in case...

Oh, a nice easy one to start off with... wow, gee, thanks a lot... Preserved aircraft don't always represent the state of the machine when it took its first test flight, so the fitting on the Canadian Spitfire may not be original to that aircraft. Wings were changed if they had been damaged; one relatively recent Mk.IX(?) restoration caused some head scratching as a rather mismatched pair had been fitted at some stage At the moment we don't know when or where things changed and since photos of the underside of Mk.IIbs in service are a bit hard to find, it might need a long trawl though documents at the PRO and other places to sort it out. Mk.IIb and Vb production at CBAF overlapped a litle bit during late June and early July 1941 and some details might have carried over from one to the other - parts that had already been made and which didn't have a fault and/or weren't safety critical would normally be used up before changing to the newer design to avoid slowing production. The later asymmetrical fairing designed by Supermarine might be different to the version initially used at CBAF, but I don't know one way or t'other. The best way to find these things out is usually to make a categorical statement and then sit back and wait for someone who knows a lot more than I do to throw bricks at me and my arguments. Check the late Edgar Brooks' post from 2013 for details of two versions but not the teardrop version used on R6923 or the Eduard IIb kit- the images are still up the time of writing this

A bit of digging suggest that the cannon fairings on the underside of the wings are slightly different between Mk.IIB and "most" MkVbs, the Eduard kit having the narrower teardrop type fitted to the IIBs and conversions - oddly enough it seems that very few Mk.Vb drawings and kits have got the later type quite right as it's not symmetrical about its long axis, but spreads out on the outboard side A well known view of a 92 sqn machine converted from a Mk1 follows ; it has the same fairing as the Eduard moulding The asymmetrical style of fairing will have to wait for a dedicated Vb wing to be made available. The answer to the original question might be that you can accurately model *some* Mk.Vbs, especially those which were converted from ealrlier marks, but not all.

I haven't found anything missing - YET. Evidence for a modified intake is inconclusive, but if it did exist it certainly wasn't a hugely visible difference. None of the drawings in my pile shows it as differing by more than a line's width, though that may simply mean that it's a detail that has escaped the attention of quite a few different people. A handful of Mk.IIbs (P8339, P8545, P8549, P8589, P8645, and P8725)were reworked as Mk.Vbs by fitting a Merlin 45, there was a separate mod for the larger oil cooler which Edgar Brooks mentioned on here a few years ago.

The Eduard kit should have the long intake along with the bottom and top wing mouldings from the late kit so you are looking good for raw materials. Eduard had added a representation on flush rivets on the rear fuselage which is fine for the later machines - these seem to have replaced the mushroom head version some time in spring or summer 1943 - BSxxx and ENxxx serialled machines seem to have had mushroom heads, but by the time they got to the MH serials flush rivets were being used.

Are you trying to catch the effect of what you would have seen with the Mk.I eyeball or what you would usually see in a photo? Camera shutters often only catch part of the rotation, so the segments woudl be slightly visble but blurred at the edges, as would the propeller blades. The old eyeballs see things differently and you end up thinking you see much the same thing that you would if you mixed the colours together (I don't know if you ever got to sit though the old school demonstration with a fast rotating multi-coloured disc which was intended to show how white light was made up of different colours, but the principle is the same.) On the other hand the camera effect needs you to blend the different colours much more tightly at the pointy end than at the rear face, and the blades should be less blurry nearer the centre than they are at the outer edge of the disc.

Magic - thanks all. Most Mk.IXs did have a joint here though it is usually very hard to see - it's the sort of thing that is usually only visible one close inspection or after a bit of weathering, and might be better simulated by a slight change in paint colour than an engraved line. It seems to be Castle Bromwich feature across most of the Spitfires that were built there and most Mk IXs were built at CBAF whereas the Mk.VIIIs were built by Supermarine, and I am now much more confident that the joint wasn't there on any MK.VIII machines when they left the factory. Umm - that's VERY interesting ; if these are Supermarine drawing that could explain the lack of a joint at the front, but why one at the rear? Is it some legacy of planning for changing over from Mk.V production or was there perhaps a limit to the size of sheet alloy that could be pressed when the drawing was made? I can't see a corresponding joint on the South African Mk.VIII which suggest it might not be feature that lasted long in production (That set of photos of the SAAF machine is excellent - nothing like bare metal for showing what might be hidden under paint; thanks for the link. ) If Roy Sutherland has cast a joint line in his part, I'd be very confident in saying it was the product of actual research rather than his copying what someone else has done - it is a really good option for the Mk.IX but not, it seems, for the Mk.VIII without a little bit more work.

My cousin in Brisbane says it must have been written down by a Kiwi...