Graham Boak

Early advice to British modellers on the C-47 was that they were painted in Dark Earth. Wrong, but a bit of a hint there. I've certainly seen a lot of variation of OD in different WW2 colour photos, but I'm with Chuck. The green on the other aircraft is too pure a green and lacks even a hint of olive.

I think your memory is mixing the myth of repainting in passage with the work by Paul Lucas. These aircraft were repainted in the UK with Dark Mediterranean Blue. Paul gives considerable coverage to the reaction by "Jumbo" Gracie to the scheme initially offered. At this stage the USN blues had not appeared, although apparently a small amount of an experimental blue was present on Wasp -hardly enough for 40 extra fighters. The cannon were not removed immediately on Malta, but after flights made by Laddie Lucas (and others) had realised the difficult handling stemming from the heavy weapons outboard. Correspondence on this was covered in Brian Cauchi's book on Spitfires on Malta in 1942. The bulge to the rear of the roundel was only found on early batches of the Mk.Vc.

The aircraft is definitely a Mk.Vc. I suspect that the wing roundel is just faded under the Malta sun. Otherwise yes.

We can assume that aircraft were repainted as soon as possible, following the issue of the ruling. However a floatplane on board a battleship would need to be flown off to a shore base and be replaced in the meantime. This is likely, as seems to have happened here, to result in aircraft being retained in the earlier colours for some considerable time.

It helps to have actual working engines suitable for flight, not just nice ideas. It should be pointed out that not all US engine companies licence built British technology, but there are times that good enough and working reliably is worth more than a theoretical superiority. PS. the Model T was out of production before 1940. US automotive technology had moved on a long way from that.

The Ju.88 is usually quoted as 1/64, which is the same thing. Also S gauge in model railways, which I think is purely a US thing.

Temperate Sea Scheme: Extra Dark Sea Grey and Dark Slate Grey. The latter is greenish.

Severely unsafe. Look up inertia roll coupling.

Supporting the last part of the argument, I recall the tale of one fellow engineer who went behind the Iron Curtain. After the passengers were loaded, the pilot left the cabin to open an engine cowling. Taking a screwdriver from his pocket, he fastened a junction and then closed the cowling, returned to the cockpit, and the plane flew off. However the Herald was capable of operating from rough and rugger fields, with a wide and high fuselage. It lost out to the narrow-fuselaged Friendship.

Profit was always in mind. And (although it wasn't a Wessex) there was one passenger who went missing on a flight across the Channel...

Volume 2 starts with 50 or so pages on postwar vehicles, but much of the book is taken up with the AOS and unit insignia including much of WW2. All four books are organised by subject areas rather than chronologically.

It's always sad. However there's surely a cat rescue home nearby with another cat needing to fill the hole.

Not really: a project-only drawing for the real P-80. Very few projects ever appear in model form - discounting Nazi dream machines of course.

Afraid so. Slowing the airflow decreases the lift. The simpler answer is probably right - slowing down to hold station for the photo. Re airbrakes. In the original requirement, the Me.210 was to replace not just the Bf.110 but also the Ju.87. Possibly the air brakes are basically a remnant of the original design, although I don't think I've ever heard of them being used as divebombers.

Not really. The Japanese problem was not lack of effort in keeping them flying but lack of oil products. Fuel itself was limited, so plenty of time to keep aircraft clean, unless you were in one of the key units (such as the Shidens). For late production aircraft the paint was having to be applied without primer, and so would peel off with when handled, and come away in large sheets. I've wondered whether this could be done in modelling terms by a mix of decent enamels in areas away from regular handling but elsewhere with patches of the water-based acrylics that also come away with handling.

This will depend upon just when it was painted. It seems that Sky Blue was commonly used up to December 1940. The inevitable question is: do you have a photo? If so the band will appear lighter on the underside than the Sky. This is also true for the spinner against the underside of the nose but less clear.

I was tempted by that one, but the other Fujimi tanks of the period I did buy had conventional markings. The rubber tracks we just had to cope with.

And requiring payment in US dollars, that Britain was not overstocked with.

Maybe, but that would have required considerable funding of a new engine (the Medway) and then they would have an expensive project not backed by their prime customer.

Less wartime colour film than postwar colour reproduction: I have seen it as green and as blue. I feel that the wartime comments from aviation enthusiasts (Observer Corps members?) who visited the airfield are somewhat stronger evidence than postwar memories. There are other examples: did the 357th use OD or RAF Dark Green? Different groundcrew members say different things. There was a US carrier late in the Pacific War that was known in the fleet because of its blue camouflage: asking one sailor who was on it at the time answered that it was grey, like all the other ships. So could it be that memories of the common colour OD have influenced other people's memories? At this time OD was no longer specified for US aircraft, but several 8th AF fighter groups were intended to go to France, so overpainting the stripes with a dark green rather than a silver to better match the aircraft overall makes sense. Equally it is the time when the units were blossoming out in bright colours, so the blue makes sense from that viewpoint. I don't think this is ever going to be settled.

I was always tempted by that, but the green and brown was only on the Mk.1, most of which went to to a training unit in the Caribbean. All the RAF squadrons used Mk.IIs in OD/NG only, although there has been some doubt over the precise hues and possible repainting after overhauls.

Try variety and abundance.

Re Spaniards on the Eastern Front, I was not considering ground troops but the fighter unit on 109s. See the recent Helion book on the Spanish AF during WW2. Not SBs, true, nor any other twin, but the comment was more on the curious definition of "neutral" .rather than qualification for this GB.

Not as a constraint, but as an advantage that "fell out" of the basic design. Given how much of the A-10 design was constrained by survivability and recovery, it is by no means unlikely that it was indeed considered and deliberately chosen. However, quite a lot of aircraft in the early days of retractable undercarriages were designed with semi-exposed wheels with the thought of a safer landing should the mechanism fail. Not quite so unimaginable. As for the gun muzzle digging in, the A-10 was like all others in landing nose high. As shown by the example above it doesn't happen. At least on a hard runway.

Difficult to argue that Republican Spain was somehow less neutral than the Nationalist (or Francoist) given the active actions taken by the Germans and Italians during the Civil War. During WW2 there was no Republican Spain, but there was an official Spanish unit on the Eastern Front alongside the Germans.