Steve in Ottawa

Hi Paul, thanks for weighing in. From what I can see from the image that someone kindly sent to me, the Airfix fuselage roundels are a bit smaller than the four wing roundels, so that sounds like it lines up with what you're saying.

Absolutely correctly on that, RL. But we did have one RN Gannet WN344 visiting Canada on winter trials for at several months in 1954 at the Winter Experimental Establishment in Alberta.

It's just something I'm toying with for an IPMS Canada decal sheet offering we're looking at.

Perfect, thanks Admiral!

I haven't bought the kit yet but I'm looking for someone who can measure and provide me with the sizes of the roundel decals in the Airfix kit. I think that they're 30" on the fuselage (.625"/15.875 mm) and 36" on the wings (.75"/19.05 mm), but I'd like somebody with the kit to measure and let me know. Any help would be much appreciated.

PM sent to you with a question about the kit.

Graham, could you tell me where Wingleader is now saying that it's a yellow band?

Thank you, SJ, this is great stuff!

I was just doing a bit of Sabre research and found all this good info, minus all the imagery. Any chance this can be revitalized for viewing them?

As far as I've been able to determine, the simple painted-on red/white marking appeared first on Spitfires in 1942, and then in 1943 the RCAF HQ formalized the operational marking as the blue-blue-red waterslide decal that went into wider use in England and later onto the operational types on the RCAF Home War Establishment (e.g., Cansos, Liberators, Venturas, Hurricanes, Kittyhawks, Bolingbrokes). Of course you can find variations of this marking, no doubt due to unavailability of the official decals. The one decal I have examined was printed in England, but I don't know if a Canada-based printer also did them up at some point.

Interesting discussion, but do keep in mind that the red-and-white marking was in use overseas in the spring of 1942, prior to the official dark blue-light blue-red waterslide decal being approved by RCAF HQ in February 1943. According to what I've been able to find, the red and white marking was created by Bob Morrow, who is quoted in print as saying: ”On May 16, 1942, we moved to Kenley, Surrey, and set about serious business. On May 31, [1942], we moved to Redhill [where] I introduced the logo of a red Maple Leaf in a white nine-inch circle. ... RCAF headquarters liked the idea.” This story was also related to me during a 1990's interview with George Burroughs, who was the main pilot of Mustang I AM251 'O', when he served in 414 Sqn. He was buddies with Bob Morrow, so I was pleasantly surprised when George knew the history of the marking. There are certainly lots of variations of the small marking, whether based on the red-white or the blue-blue-red versions, but by the time these markings started showing up in earnest, the red-leafed RCAF ensign had been in use for almost two years, since July 1940, and most RCAF members would have been familiar with this being their national identifier.

Hi guys, I sense that we're at the end of this discussion, so I want to thank those who weighed in with facts and opinions. The NITE Hawk pod below is clearly a different colour from the rest of the CF-18; whether the pod is nominally the same paint colour in the 1:1 world is an academic point. For me doing up my CF-18 model, I'd go with a different shade of paint, and that's good enough for me.

Hi Andre, no argument that your photo looks like the same colour on the jet and the pod, but if you look at the CF-18 and pod in my link you'll see that they're distinctly different colours.

Good info, Gary. I recall that we borrowed something like a half-dozen RAAF NITE Hawk pods at some point for the operations in Italy, but off the top of my head I don't recall which deployment/rotation received those, and how long we had them.

Hey Gary, thanks for the feedback. Did you have a look at that photo link I dropped in on the first posting? The NITE Hawk is clearly a different colour than 36375, or else it's a really poor match for it.