Rolls-Royce

To further muck up the water, for a period around the time of the Korean War, cockpits of at least some USAF aircraft were black.

However, the boundary between the upper surface and lower surface colors is right at the top of the "4" on both sides. Go figure!

Milos, the mechanics of that type of paint application are the same, whether 1:72 or 1:1. Thin very heavily and spray lightly in a mist or wet coat. At that stage, the German maintenance crews had not seen the kind of attrition they would later in the war, so IMHO, the majority would have been experienced to one degree or another. I also don't feel they would have handed each plane's crew a spray gun and told them to "get to it". It's more likely the painter was either specifically trained as such, had demonstrated some level of skill, or was directly supervised by an experienced/trained painter. For the record, I have assisted in painting a real aircraft. We did not do translucent coats as it was a high gloss white polyurethane and had to go on fairly thick (late 1970s formulas).

Milos, in a recent thread, someone posted that Nick hadn't been active here in quite some time. You can email him at his blog, aviationofjapan.com. He does answer, either on the blog or directly. And he has covered a Luftwaffe topic or two there even though that isn't his primary focus.

Uh, oh. Now you've done it. You used the "F" word...

Nobby, you may want to ask John Miller at Model Paint Solutions. He stocks Mission Models exclusively, and may be able to give you recommendations.

IIRC, the MAP directed the change of camouflage colors to a smooth finish rather than the rougher matt finish fairly early in the war. Although only Sky is described as "Type S" by some sources, all the permanent finishes eventually became "Type S"

Woo! Just imagine what a PITA a real A-2 or A-3 with an R-2800 would have been to a Spitfire V...

Cool little car, the Midget. My first car was a '64 A-H Sprite Mk II with the "big" 900+ cc engine and bolt-on side curtains. Fun car, and perfect for the 70s fuel crisis. I still miss it sometimes. Loved the simple SU carbs. Here's hoping your business smooths out in 2020, Jamie.

Sadly, that tiny improvement is probably necessary when we are talking about shades such as RLM02 and the Zero's Amber Gray, both of which inhabit that murky area of fairly low chroma and borderline hue that is more dependent than usual upon both lighting conditions and observer physiology for perceived color.

Wow. Note what it also did to the camo pattern on the plane and the trees in the background. More subtle than the hit to the yellow, but still a change...

Yeah, at night, that would be a real issue...

Roger on the "safety" thing. You only get one mistake with props, and it's usually messy. Wonder how many folks the Luftwaffe lost to spinning props, as they didn't paint theirs?

The writer probably used Wikipedia as a source for the conversion maths. That kind of stuff causes my eyes to glaze over when I see it on the page. I can usually figure out the whys and wherefores after a little experimentation with the program, but the equations involved make me shudder!

Jamie, I agree with everything you have said, with only one caveat: for those with no hard references such as actual parts, paint chips, etc to match to, things such as Munsell references can be useful. It is, after all a form of shorthand for transmitting color information from one user to another, and far more detailed than phrases such as "bluish purple". However, conversion to RGB is fraught with uncertainty. Jack, please note that the RGB numbers derived for a color calculated from Munsell and probably other standards as well will vary - sometimes considerably - based on the RGB colorspace and illuminant (the color of white your display is set for, in this case) selected for the conversion. The Munsell notation itself doesn't change during this process, but the RGB values sure do! BTW, is anyone else finding this discussion very interesting? I am!

Jack, according to Nick's MAP document, the 12% refers to reflectivity. If Nick is using a spectrophotometer, as I suspect he is, it's not unusual to get some small differences in readings from time to time. The repeatability specifications for these instruments are not tight enough to preclude it.

As an aside, Nick lists two Munsell callouts for most if not all the colors in his MAP .pdf. The first is his own, I think, while the second, in parentheses, is from another reference. Bright Red 12%, for instance, is shown as Munsell 8 R 3.4/11.3 (5 R 4/12*), with the asterisk indicating its origin in the other reference. Unfortunately, the software I use does not yet allow direct entry of Munsell values, so I cannot use it to generate RGB numbers from someone else's findings. The closest I could come online for Nick's Bright Red was 8R 3.4/11.5, at 156, 26, 28.

Sadly, it appears you are right about the book's chips changing. The Dull Red color is pretty far off between Nick Millman's work and the book, with a dE hovering right at 4.0 over several runs. The Bright Red is much better, with Nick stating 5R 4.0/120 and the book's color chip reading at 5.3R 3.8/11.7, with a dE of 1.95, definitely in the ballpark. I didn't go any further.

Phantome gave a link for a converter, so that's covered. I can give sRGB numbers as well, but what you see would be based on how accurate your monitor is. Munsell books only give the color values in integers, while a majority of the colors will measure out to fractional (decimal) values. So a book will only give you a range that that color falls in. BTW, Nick's MAP work is available in .pdf form by contacting him at his website. It does have color swatches, Munsell values, and the closest FS and RAL equivalents. For the last two, he also gives dE2000 values, which tell you how far away from the actual color the quoted equivalent is, with a dE of 2.0 being very close. It has tons of background info on the paints and also features JackG's bright and dull roundel colors. It's professionally done and would be a much better reference for you than my humble efforts.

Are you interested in a certain color range, or all of them? I have the RAF Museum series book on camouflage and markings with the color chips and can spectrometrically measure them for you. My measurement software can report Munsell values.

The one external difference that occurs to me is the E-3 having a rounded top to the hood with thinner framing, while the E-4/7 had the flat-topped hood with much heavier framing. IIRC the E in that famous photo had the flat hood. I'm sure there are others but less-visible. As I recall, the hoods and rear glass sections were interchangeable, so check your sources. For that air filter, you might check the Ultracast.ca website. They stock more brands of resin bits than any other seller I'm aware of.

You may want to email Nick at his blog to see what he thinks about that.

Check out Fundekals' website. They produce two large Spitfire decal sheets, with one focused on early-war (1939-1940) Spits. You can view and download the instruction guides for free. Just might be eye-opening...

Excellent points well taken, Troy! IIRC, the first museum paint job on the NASM D-9 on exhibit at the USAF Museum was overall RLM 75 topsides. But it was never claimed that this was the plane's original color.

Milos, don't forget that these were single-coat paints. As such, an overall coat of RLM 75 topsides having mottled greens oversprayed would incur a slight weight penalty over 74/75, 81/82, or 82/83. But it would provide better camouflage in the 1945 combat environment approaching that of the late-war greens overall. Note that at the time of its capture, the black/white RVD bands had been oversprayed with green on the fuselage spine. I don't believe this was that common, and there's no other reason to do it than to improve the aircraft's camouflage as it sat on the ground. I'm pretty sure the greens were applied by the unit. It was the Kommodore's aircraft, and if he said "paint it", they were going to paint it. He was not likely to want to give up the sheer performance the D-13 offered simply because it was gray, so enhancing the aircraft's existing camouflage was the only option.