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Wellington XIV


leyreynolds

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I'm about to start work on a Wellington XIV of 458(RAAF) Sqn. based at Gibraltar in early 1945. I have a photo' of the aircraft in question but it is banking away from the camera and the uppersurfaces are not clearly visible  and appear to be a single colour (perhaps two colours both rather faded)- were uppersurfaces of this Mark originally in the EDSG/DSG two colour scheme or the single top colour which I understand was introduced late in the war?

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Ley, 

Just did a quick google search and found the No. 458 Squadron Association page which has this photograph listed. She looks a little battered, however the light / dark colour split on the horizontal stab would guide me down the camouflaged uppersurface route rather than one colour. 

 

I hope this helps.. 

Cheers.. Dave 

 

38641633820_c47ac7859b_b.jpg

 

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I'm with noelh: looks like an almost copybook application of the EDSG/White scheme as laid down in DTD 360 App 5 of 23/2/43 as contained in Ross's excellent reference:

 

Aircraft for Coastal Duties except PR, Met, ASR and Special Duties.
Upper surfaces Extra dark Sea Grey, Undersurfaces Glossy White (to pattern 1) extended upwards and merged into the upper surfaces so the front and side elevations appear almost entirely white and to cover the whole of the engine nacelle forward of the leading edge boundary. Fins, rudders, spinners to be white. De-icing sheaths to be in flexible paint (colour not given but seems to have been silver - ref photos, also Lucas and Bowyer articles). Engine cowl rings and anti-glow shields to be white. Flying boats to have white anti-fouling on undersurfaces. Serials to be Light Slate Grey (interestingly there is no mention of code letters). Roundels on fuselage sides and uppersurfaces of wings.

 

Think the marks on the tailplane are just staining on a scruffy airframe.  I'm intrigued by the upper surface roundels on that aircraft: unless it's some weird trick of the light they seems to have been reduced to a small monotone disk.

 
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It's fair to point out that some aircraft (though generally larger ones than the Wellington) retained the two colours of the TSS on the uppersurfaces long after the introduction of the EDSG-only uppersurfaces, despite the raising of the white to the required height.  I can see other parts of what could be a 2-colour pattern, on the wing and on the top of the fuselage, so suggest checking these areas against the pattern and seeing if they coincide or not.

 

What you are seeing on the wing are the red centres of the roundels.  The blue on top of the wings often fades, as does the EDSG, so there is little contrast between the outer ring of the roundel and the camouflage colour(s)..

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Knowing the serial, if you could trace it's production date. That might help or muddy the waters. If it was built in '44 then new scheme. If it was an early build the better the chance of it being repainted at some point. During the transition period ....well take your pick.

Given that the one in the photo is so badly faded you could mix and match.

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Thank you gentlemen for all your input. I spent some time last night looking at photo's of Wellington XIV's attributed to 458 Sqn and am not much wiser. Generally the shots are not too great and the uppers could easily be one colour or two badly faded. I'll see what I can discover on the production date and then make a decision - or perhaps just take a guess!

 

Ley

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Sounds like a plan. I'm going for the single colour scheme even if I prefer the other one. I'm working on a 172 squadron machine that even now lies at the bottom of the bay a few miles from here. It came down in October 1944. So in the absence of evidence to the contrary. I chose that scheme. I too spent a lot of time looking up 172 squadron photos with a similar result to you.  It's amazing how such a well documented aircraft that there should be some ambiguity.

 

Edited by noelh
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On 24/02/2018 at 1:11 PM, Seahawk said:

I'm with noelh: looks like an almost copybook application of the EDSG/White scheme as laid down in DTD 360 App 5 of 23/2/43 as contained in Ross's excellent reference:

 

Think the marks on the tailplane are just staining on a scruffy airframe.  I'm intrigued by the upper surface roundels on that aircraft: unless it's some weird trick of the light they seems to have been reduced to a small monotone disk.

 

 

On 24/02/2018 at 2:14 PM, Graham Boak said:

What you are seeing on the wing are the red centres of the roundels.  The blue on top of the wings often fades, as does the EDSG, so there is little contrast between the outer ring of the roundel and the camouflage colour(s)..

Given the blue on the fin flash looks much lighter than the red and it's hard to pick out a yellow ring on the roundel I wonder if it is orthochromatic film which makes judging colours more difficult - I don't think I've tried simulating that in my experiments http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235018964-interpreting-raf-colours-from-black-and-white-photos/ so I'll refrain from guessing the effect on TSS.

 

PS - thanks for the kind comments on my web page, I doubt it will ever be completely finished or completely correct but it's the best I can do and I'm open to friendly discussion on any of the content.

Edited by rossm
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TSS is very difficult to interpret in b&w photos.  Sometimes there is very little contrast yet at other times there can be as much as TLS.  Even worse, on ortho film there are times (possibly when linked to the use of a particular filter?) when the EDSG disappears into a very light grey and the contrast is enormous.  Fortunately there are very few examples of the last.  (Actually, thinking about it, it is the middle case that is the worst as the other two do tend to be TSS rather than anything else.)

 

Re the aircraft in post 2: I think that you are right that it is probably ortho film, but the comment about the upper wing roundel blue fading is still valid.

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