JohnMacG

Following the recent thread on Blenheim Ifs in Singapore, I want to do a 1/72nd scale model of one, but..... Is there a ready-mix enamel paint for that Sky Blue colour seen on the colour pics of these a/c? I've seen Humbrol 23 (duck egg blue) suggested, but it seems too light to me, and not 'grey' enough. Any suggestions?

How do the various 1/72nd scae Fairey Swordfish kits compare to one another? Which is best? TIA

I'm just going to suggest something that occurred to me while looking at the wonderful pics of OE-T, namely IF these a/c were in TempLS, the uppersurfaces of the lower mainplanes AND the fuselage sides were lt green/lt earth - the contrast of which looks very like that on OE-T. (When I built my Contrail Vilebeest that's what I painted it in.) Undersurfaces? Who knows? A gut feeling would be something like Sky Blue; far more appropriate for local conditions than Sky, and, of course, the Blenheim fighters which we discusses recently had something very like Sky Blue painted underwings. Any thoughts? Also, to go back to the beginning; surely somewhere in the Air Ministry files for 1939 (-ish) there must be a signal telling Singapore Command to camo' their 'silver' aircraft. Has anyone found this? And does it say what colours were to be used? Or was the camo to be left to local decision/availability of paints in the local stores, etc.?

there were three Albacores used in the Malayan campaign, found at Seletar when Japan attacked - 'Bloody Shambles' Vol.2 has their serial #s - they were allocated to one of the Vildebeest squadrons (again, see B. Shambles) as the 'Albacore Flight'. They participated in the Endau raid, and one survived to be evacuated to Java with the remaining Vildebeests.

Thanks Nick; 149 was indeed coded 'LY' and it kept its' Heyfords until as late as March 1939 (replacing them with Wellingtons). Incidentally, two squadrons, Nos 97 & 166, kept their Heyfords until AUGUST 1939! Doesn't really bear thinking about, does it? Now, I feel an LY-coded overall NIVO Heyford coming on.......

Great! Qhich unit? What codes?

I followed the threads about the camo'd Heyfords with somthing approaching fascination, and FWIW I'm now satisfied that no bomber Heyford ever carried a disruptive camo scheme (until a pic of such a thing turns up, of course). A/C used for training is another thing, and I'd put that under the heading of 'possible - just'. But, what I want to know is - were any 'Munich-era' codes ever carried on Heyfords? Heyfords apparently stayed in 1st line service with a few units to early 1939, certainly long enough for unit codes to be allocated, but were any actually used on the Heyfords? (A pic would be more than nice!) Certainly other obsolete types, such as the Demon and Harrow, wore unit codes, but what about the Heyford?

Excellent summation, Mark. But as I wrote earlier, there is a pic of L6667 with the codes PT-D. Now, I know, that over time a/c could change theirindividual letters, but if L6667 WAS 'D', then that would make L6666 'B'.

FWIW, to start with colours show, I used Photoshop to play with those colour pics of the Blenheim fighters; once you remove the overall blue cast from the pics, the colour of the fuselage bands looks much closer to real 'sky' than sky blue. There is another pic of a 27 Sq Blenheim fighter; the aircraft is PT-F L8618. The photo was taken by the Japnese after the A/c was captured virtually intact, probably in northern Malaya.The a/c does have an identical sky fuselage band, complete with cut-out for the serial, but is really interesting is the entire undersurface of the port wing would seem to be painted black, which would agre with the comments posted above. (You can't see the undersides oof the tailplane in the pic.) BUT there's more.... I've seen it stated (Somewhere!) that 27Sq only had one flight (6 a/c) of Blenheim fighters, the other flight being normal Blenheim I bombers. Thiere is a relatively well-known pic of 'PT' coded Blenheim I bombers with standard black undersides (PT-D:L6667). BUT..... According to Geoffrey Rex Collins in his book 'Tattered Eagle' (he was a 27Sq groundcrewman) the Blenheim Ifs didn't receive their gun packs (or back armour for the pilot) until abbout October 1941, so the lenheim bomber pic might pre-date this. Now all we3 need is a pic of an 'EG' coded Blenheim IV - IN SINGAPORE!

Can anyone tell me EXACTLY when the Hampden's rear gun armament (dorsal & ventral) was doubled from single guns to twin gun set-ups? Before, during or after the Norwegian campaign?