mhaselden

The photos were taken at Kallang, Singapore, before 27 Sqn moved north.

Many thanks for the replies, gents. I'm toying with investing in a WNW kit...but if I'm spending that much, I want to be sure I'm getting the right one. Unfortunately, OAW versions seem particularly scarce, and hence expensive.

Given the different variants of Fokker D.VII, anyone out there in Britmodellerworld know what would be the best kit to represent his aircraft, as shown below?

Possible but less likely, methinks. There were Oxboxes at 4 FTS in Habbaniyah still sporting the high demarcation line in May 1941. To me, the balance of probabilities leans towards Amy Johnson’s aircraft still having the high line….but we may never know for sure.

From the limited available photographic evidence, I'd go with unpainted aluminium with no padding.

Not a very accurate representation, I'm afraid. AN213 carried the codes TD-Z not TD-F.

Well, it's only been 4+ years but I finally made a discovery that, although not a smoking gun, increases some potential connective tissue in the various records. I went to Kew today and pored through some files of Farnborough's daily routine orders. My relative was promoted to A/Cpl on 1 Jul 1916, with the event promulgated a few days later in the daily routine orders. That record identifies the owning unit of the individual and, in my relative's case, it's listed as SAD. Now, that's still a year prior to the crash of A5539 but it does link my relative to the unit from which that airframe made its last recorded flight. I had hoped that my relative's later promotion to Sergeant, in 1917 (acting in January, substantive in July) would provide conclusive proof but, alas, the daily routine orders for those periods seem not to have survived.

I, too, was skeptical until I watched the video. The evidence as presented is pretty compelling, IMHO, and has nothing to do with "analyzing" a black and white photo.

Running to an aircraft while wearing a parachute is less of a scramble and more of a (slow) waddle. As others have noted, the chute would either be in the pilot's seat or sitting on the wing/tailplane to be donned as the pilot approached the aircraft.

Not sure if this helps but this video includes a few brief glimpses of the passenger compartment in the BOAC Mossies:

Hi Christian, The Dutch Profile booklet on the Douglas DB-8A/3N does include a couple of photos of the gunner's cockpit. Unfortunately, the area is pretty cramped so there isn't much visible. However, it appears there's a mechanism attached to the gunner's seat so that the back can be folded down to enable access to the bombing position below. I'm guessing the gunner/bomb aimer would move forward from his seat, into the raised section of the central fuselage, and then descend into the lower fuselage to access the bombing window. There does appear to be a floor in the gunner's cockpit aft of the seat but it appears more like an U-shaped well rather than a flat floor. Recommend you try getting hold of the booklet as it's likely the best source you'll find. Here's an image of the cover in case it's helpful.

Thanks Troy. One of these days I'll learn to actually read threads before posting stupid questions. MSG makes sense...but that also means the code letters were lighter, hence the potential they were Sky. Appreciate the quick response.

Probably a dumb question but what shade of grey was used for the upper surfaces. It looks very light in several of the images, much lighter than Ocean Grey. Given that the paint is newly applied, fading can't be the cause. I'd welcome any thoughts on the topic.

It seems to me that many respondents in this thread are willfully ignoring the above post. Yes, there are errors in logbooks and ORBs but it beggars belief that the same error would be repeated over two dozen times in the same record. We could ignore the fact that Deere flew P9390 multiple times and never flew P9398. We could also continue pointing to third-hand sources that do identify P9398 but don't cite any primary sources. I know where I'd put my money, though...and it's not with P9398.

Fine...so go with 12,000 ft. That's still 2.27 miles away. How well can you discern ANYTHING at 2.27miles distance? Your questions have been answered. Pilots reported that the night/white scheme made them too visible to the enemy. This makes sense because Fighter Command wanted to attack incoming raids from a height advantage. Thus the Luftwaffe crews, who were much closer to the Hurricanes and Spitfires than were any Observer Corps bods on the ground, may well have found the night/white scheme helpful in identifying adversary aircraft as they drew closer. Replacing night/white with Sky makes perfect sense if the pilots wanted better camouflage so they could increase the odds of surprising the enemy. Whether it actually did a better job of hiding the Hurricanes and Spitfires against the sky is a different question altogether...and experience in other theatres (e.g. the Mediterranean) indicated that Sky wasn't particularly useful against the strong blue hues of the actual sky in that part of the world. Even the prewar trials came back with mixed results. Certainly nothing as definitive as saying that the white/night scheme consistently helped ground observers differentiate friend from foe.

Depends at what altitude the aircraft were flying. The night/white undersides were to aid the Observer Corps reporting inbound raids, typically at high altitudes. The D-Day stripes were to prevent fratricide, either by air or ground forces. That’s a different problem with far more facets, such as low-level ground attack missions by Typhoons, and identification of friendly aircraft by other Allied aircraft over enemy territory etc.

It's actually incredibly difficult to differentiate colours on an aircraft at distance. Glint, shadow and odd lighting effects can easily confuse what the eye thinks it sees. An aircraft flying at at 20,000ft is 3.79 miles away from an observer on the ground. Trying to discern details of colour at such ranges, even with binoculars or other optics, is virtually impossible.

According to this website (http://www.aerofiles.com/JBlock-p38expo.html), the British deliberately ordered the early P-38s without turbosuperchargers. Here's some text from the page: Both British and French delegations insisted the fighters be equipped with Allison s without turbo-superchargers and with strictly right-hand rotation because they wanted the engines interchangeable with those of the Curtiss H.81A Tomahawk that had been ordered by both Britain and France in large numbers. In addition the Committee wanted to optimize the aircraft for medium-altitude combat, as was currently the dominant mode of aerial warfare in Europe, rather than the high-altitude role for which the P-38 had been designed. The Anglo-French delegation was also aware of the problems currently being experienced by the USAAC in the delivery of turbo-superchargers and did not want to run the risk of costly, time-consuming delays, since they wanted all planes delivered in less than a year. However, the UK also ordered 540 Lightning MkIIs that did have turbosupercharging but the UK cancelled the order after only one airframe was completed. Again, text from the above website: When France fell in June1940, the entire contract was taken up by Britain. By July 1941 the RAF recognized there would be a need for high-altitude capabilities, and the original contract was amended to deliver 143 Lightning Is [AE978/999, AF100/220] with the V-1710-15 non-turbo-supercharged engines, and the remaining 524 as Lightning IIs [AF221/AF744] with turbo-supercharged V-1710-F5L/-F5R engines (Model 322-60-04). Now...what's not clear to me is why the RAF cancelled the order for all Lightnings after testing just 3 MkI airframes? Clearly, they didn't like it. Perhaps they regretted the decision to employ unhanded engines?

Yeah, mea culpa...I was mis-remembering another photo of a 92 Sqn Spit that was taken in Paris prior to hostilities. The posted image was taken at Northolt in May 1940 (at least according to the Osprey "Spitfire Mark I/II Aces 1939-1941"). I suspect the undersides were in one of the more standard variations of the night/white scheme with painted aluminium under the cowling, rear fuselage, and undersides of the tailplanes, with just the wings in the night/white scheme. It's anyone's guess as to the colours of the ailerons, though. Aluminium or matching the colours of the wings are both options.

This image may be useful. Photo was taken at Paris in 1940, I believe. Stanford-Tuck is in the middle with Allan Wright to photo right. The Spitfire is a 92 Sqn bird, GR-U, which shows some useful details. Note the black port wing underside with Type A1 roundel, the silver-painted underside to the cowling with the individual aircraft letter ('U' in this case). The fuselage roundel appears to be quite large with a narrow yellow surround. Also note the rather thin-looking fin flash. Given that the fuselage roundel looks very similar to the appearance of Allan Wright's machine, I reckon the above image is as good a reference as any for the undersides of a 92 Sqn Spitfire in May 1940.

Thanks for the clarification. i wasn't aware it wasn't contemporaneous. However, that still doesn't resolve the tonal issues present in the first image. IMHO, the tonal difference of the iris and the tongue compared to the rest of the snake can't be explained by shadow or staining. It's always tricky to guess colours form monochrome images but the tongue and iris are clearly a light colour of some kind...but different from the body of the snake.

I think it rather depends which airframe you're trying to model. I haven't seen all the available images but it seems pretty clear from the images in the build thread that there are at least 2 different airframes on display. I'll use these 2 images as examples: The second (airborne) image has a rather different snake from the one shown in the first image. In the second image, the snake's "eyebrow" is fatter than that on the first image. Likewise the snake's tongue in the second image finishes further aft than that on the first image. The spinner is also different between the two images and, to my eyes. so is the camouflage demarcation: feathered in the first image but hard in the second. While I can buy that the snake body, iris and tongue on the second image are all white, I have a much harder time accepting that description for the first image. The iris and the tongue in the first image are, to my eyes, clearly a different shade from that of the snake body. I'm reluctant to guess at what each shade might actually be on a colour palette but they are tonally different to my eyes.

In the first photo in the linked build thread, the snake's tongue and iris both appear considerably lighter than the outline of the body, while the outline of the eye seems to be the same shade as the rest of the body.

Here's a build thread with plenty of WW2 photos: I'm about as far from being an expert on this as it's possible to get....but some of those photos don't appear to tally with the "white outline, sand spots" idea. The first one, in particular, suggests to me that the snake outline was some colour other than white. Also the "sand" spots within the snake look considerably darker than the actual camouflage shade. I'll grab my popcorn and await the feedback (spears, arrows etc.) from those far more informed on this topic than I.

Here's a better version: https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/attachments/fw6dc-bwyaewhdh-format-jpg-name-large-jpg.722365/