Rolls-Royce

Not to downplay the JaPo books (I have both), but on this one, I'd tend to go with Jerry Crandall. He has been closely associated with this particular airframe since the 1960s, with much hands-on time in that interval. And no one has spent the time researching its history that he has.

You could try filling the canopy with modeling clay or putty before cutting, to add support.

This is true even in 1/48, as witnessed by the provision of "canopy open" and "canopy closed" fuselage spine sections in the recent Tamiya Mk I.

They are great airbrushes. I have the PS-289.

Back in the day when airbrushes were less common than now, other techniques were used. Such as a small chunk of sponge dipped in the paint to be used, blotted nearly dry, then used to randomly dab on the color. I used this method the other day, but with a Q-tip (AKA 'cotton bud") dipped in well-thinned paint and blotted nearly dry to touch up a wing-engine nacelle join on an Me 262 that kept getting too much overspray from the wing upper surfaces. Looked weird until it dried, at which point it blended right in.

When that old chestnut came out, Karl Ries and his 70/71 for most of the war with 74/75 later was state-of-the-art for Luftwaffe camo research! Incidentally, I built that kit, too, years ago. Same plane, with the same 74/75/76 scheme...

Antti, I think that particular mention was about Lt Theo Nibel's FW190D-9, brought down by a birdstrike during Operation Bodenplatte. I'm quoting from memory here, but the description said "...the wings are a rather brighter green than is usual for German aircraft...".

Testor's "Model Master" line was one of those that (in)famously reversed 82 and 83...

Which is precisely why I modeled a Pearl Harbor A6M2 aircraft. These planes were only a few months to a year old at the most, all Mitsubishi-built, had done all of their service to date in Northern Pacific waters with less aggressive climactic conditions than in the South, etc. Less variance to begin with...

I'll see what I can do about that swatch, Troy. I may still have the original I did the readings from.

Hi, Troy. If I may weigh in on this, I built a 1/48 Hasegawa A6M2 last year. I was eager to begin using acrylics as enamels are getting harder to come by locally, so I purchased Mission Models', Vallejo's, and AK-Interactive's takes on the Zero amber-grey (the last two as part of their IJN aircraft kits). I had purchased Nicholas Millman's treatise on "Painting the Early Zero" and was curious how accurate these paints were. Using the same gear and software I used yesterday to measure the red and blue in another post here, I measured them against Nick's quoted Munsell 7.4Y 5.8/2.0. The AK-Interactive AK-2062 measured out at a dE2000 of 4.28 (with 2.0 or less being a VERY close match). Vallejo's 71.311 came in at a dE2000 of 7.36. The winner was Mission Models' MMP-110, at a dE2000 of 1.31. If the OP can get it locally to him, the MMP-110 would be the best choice, followed at a distant second by the AK-2062.

"Hardly bearable"? It's UN-bearable. Even Kate Beckinsale doesn't make up for it! And let's not discuss the F-16 like roll rates of the P-40s and Zeroes...

All A6M2s at Pearl Harbor were built by Mitsubishi, so wheel wells and insides of gear covers are exterior color, not the green blue "aotake". Mission Models' MMP-110 "J3 SP LT Grey Japanese Zero (Amber)" measures extremely close to the Munsell reference quoted by noted researcher Nicholas Millman as the color used by Mitsubishi for its A6M production.

Here are the sRGB codes from the colors simply noted as "Red" and "Blue" in my copy of British Aviation Colours of World War Two, Volume 3 of the RAF Museum Series. There are also a "Matt Red" and "Matt Blue", both of which are much brighter than the first two. I also added "Generic RGB" codes for all these as I wasn't sure which RGB space was being used by the OP: "Red": 142 70 56 "Generic RGB": 122 52 43 "Blue": 51 64 84 "Generic RGB": 39 48 66 "Matt Red": 168 44 52 "Generic RGB": 150 26 39 "Matt Blue": 52 71 116 "Generic RGB": 39 53 96 I just scanned these patches moments ago with my personal spectrophotometer. Hope this helps! Equipment and software used: X-Rite I1 Pro 2, BabelColor CT&A.

Excellent, thank you. I was doing mine out of sheer curiosity as to which manufacturer's take on Mitsubishi's Zero "amber grey" that I had on hand was closest to published data from Nicholas Millman. My tests were not scientific, and certainly not to your level, but I found them interesting.

Jamie, when you do your spectrographic readings, are you brushing or spraying your paint's test patches? On bare or primed plastic? I've done a little of that, with the paints under test sprayed onto unprimed white styrene, but am considering using a gray (grey for you folks in Old Blighty) primer for my next testing.

Looks like they had fairly recently transitioned to the low-viz markings. It's obvious on all of them that the older stars-and-bars had been overpainted and new ones sprayed on. I was a flight chief on F-4Es at George AFB at this time. I don't remember if we had begun the changeover to Euro 1 from the SEA scheme, but it was coming. The A-10s visible in some of the photos were already wearing it.

According to their FAQ (https://www.missionmodelsus.com/pages/tips-and-tricks-faq), the only other thinner they recommend besides their own is distilled water. Others here may have tried other thinners, but when I used their paint on my Zero last year, I used theirs.

Bet it's in the wrong shades of OD/NG, too...

Add in differing manufacturers, bill of materials changes over time, and batch-to-batch variance even from the same manufacturer, and it's a wonder we see matches at all...

I wasn't sure if this belonged here or in the WWII area, but the last surviving Northrop N9M Flying Wing crashed a little while ago in a prison yard at Norco, California, several miles east of the plane's home at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino. No one on the ground was hurt, but the aircraft was totally destroyed and the pilot apparently perished. It's a sad day for aviation history buffs. I was lucky enough to have seen it in the pattern at the Ontario (California) airport a number of years ago and was hoping to see it again someday.

Man, I'm probably going to get flak for this, but I don't think there would've been a Mk 22 at all without an earlier beginning to the War. The Air Ministry, according to what I've read, originally felt the Spitfire wouldn't be amenable to development past 1941 or 1942, so in a 1946 BoB scenario, we would likely see planes that aren't Spits.

Hi, guys and gals. I'm recently retired, have been building models since my childhood, and am starting to get back into the hobby after a spell away. My current interest is 1:48 WWII fighters, both Allied and Axis. My last real model efforts were when enamels ruled and acrylics were just beginning to show up, so it's been a while. I've been lurking around here a bit soaking up Spitfire lore, and decided to sign up. I'm looking forward to being able to learn and contribute in some small manner along the way. ---Royce---