111Sqn Black arrows

[derek burton]

I tacked this on to the end the" hunter intake colour" thread but that is dropping down the charts anyone know if there intakes where black or off white and if they were black how far did it extend into the intakes. Also are there any pictures of them with regular camo drop tanks fitted.

[StephenMG]

I tacked this on to the end the" hunter intake colour" thread but that is dropping down the charts anyone know if there intakes where black or off white and if they were black how far did it extend into the intakes. Also are there any pictures of them with regular camo drop tanks fitted.

Sorry Derek, I intended to answer your question in the other thread but forgot all about it.

I've checked through every picture I have and it's difficult to tell. The depths of the intakes will always be aluminium or off-white in colour. The smoothness of the panels in there is very important and the light colour helps with visual inspection. Ordinarily the wing paintwork extended into the intake by 4-5 inches and I see nothing to suggest the Black Arrows aircraft were any different. However, it does seem that the boundary layer splitter plate may well have been painted black (at least for it's front portion) to blend in with the rest of the aircraft.

As for the wing tanks - the Black Arrows never flew displays with tanks fitted of course so I very much doubt there would have been any painted black for them. That suggests that when they needed wing tanks (for ferry flights for example) they would have fitted standard tanks. I've never seen photos of their aircraft fitted with tanks of any colour to be honest, but they did fly with the inner pylons in place which indicates that tanks were used on those aircraft.

[AnonymousAA72]

I tacked this on to the end the" hunter intake colour" thread but that is dropping down the charts anyone know if there intakes where black or off white and if they were black how far did it extend into the intakes. Also are there any pictures of them with regular camo drop tanks fitted.

Not entirely irrelevant, but I have seen photo's of 92 Sqn Blue Diamonds F6's with regular DSG/silver 100gall tanks fitted......

[tango98]

Hi Derek,

On p.33 of Dick Ward's 'Hunter Squadrons' there is a photo of XF 506 which shows (you have to squint pretty hard to see it) that only the leading edge of the plate appears to be black with the remainder of the plate/intake in what appears to be white/off-white.

If you're a Black Arrows fan, you may or may not have seen this youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOx30lc6hl4

Cheers

Dave

[derek burton]

Thanx for all the feed back i would like to build a black arrow? with either one or both tanks in dsg/silver as if the black ones or one has been damaged and its had to borrow one ,a bit of artistic licence one black one dsg/s . I have seen that 111Sqn film i think they outclass the Red Arrows ,Do you think there was such an outcry when they and the Blue Diamonds stopped displaying like now when we hear rumours of the red arrows demise

[Robin]

Never forget seeing the show at Farnborough in the late 1950s when No 111 Squadron were joined by other Hunters to form a 22 ship team that looped and rolled in close formation, that was real flying.

Robin.