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Spitfire camouflage -again!


AnonymousAA72

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Trying to place my mind into that of a photographer.

Would i not be looking for something different, out of the norm to catch my eye?

How about a spitfire not painted the same as all the rest ?

Now that looks interesting .

AD233 ZD-F was the Squadron Leader's personal machine, so perhaps it was him who wanted a different Spitfire.

...so no one thinks that the fact that the space under the cowlings is likely to be rather hotter than the space behind the firewall could have caused any difference in the rate and way in which the paint on the outside weathered and changed colour...?

The temperature is one consideration. The oil mist from the propeller's constant speed unit is another.

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ZD-F is in that photo and certainly looks as though it's painted in the DFS, as are the other planes in the picture.

Yes but the grey on the port wing is still extremely dark especially if you consider that at such a flat angle it should be lighter.

My take is still TSS touched up with OG and/or there are some replacemant panels on there..

At least I think we can agree that it is never DG / DE ...

Cheers

Martin

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Pedant mode on: TSS includes sky undersurfaces, here these look MSG in every picture.

At best the aircraft may have had the upper surfaces in the colours used in TSS.

Pedant mode off: what would the reason be for such colours? It's not like dark green was hard to find.. If the squadron leader wanted something different, why choose paints that would have had to be ordered? I can't see many reasons for an RAF fighter unit to have dark slate grey in store..

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Pedant mode on: TSS includes sky undersurfaces, here these look MSG in every picture.

At best the aircraft may have had the upper surfaces in the colours used in TSS.

Pedant mode off: what would the reason be for such colours? It's not like dark green was hard to find.. If the squadron leader wanted something different, why choose paints that would have had to be ordered? I can't see many reasons for an RAF fighter unit to have dark slate grey in store..

I am merely concluding from what my eyes see by comparing color photos... I am not commanded on what to see only if it is considered impossible due to regulations or no reports/records available.

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AD233 was lost in May 1942

BL479 was photographed on 6 August 1943.

15 months not three between these two photos. What makes you think he used the same film?

And I don't think any serious researcher has ever claimed that BL479 in this series of shots is in correct DFS. The upper surface grey is much too pale.

Notably, when photographed by Charles Brown, BL479 was the personal mount of G/Cpt M. W. S. Robinson, the Station Commander at RAF Northolt. I wonder if he wanted his Spitfire to have this non-regulation colour, or was aware of some new AMO's we're not, or just didn't care.

The Ocean Grey on the two aircraft's cowlings look fairly similar in shade. Also BL479 is at a very high altitude judging by the clouds, that would maybe have an effect.

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.. If the squadron leader wanted something different, why choose paints that would have had to be ordered? .....

.

Hi

The military way

The squadron leader wants......

The squadron leader gets .....

Unless you wanted un savoury duties or a posting somwhere

Slightly o/t

I was once told by a ww2 groundcrew member that they always had two identical spits with the W/Cs personal code letter on,

One spare in the hangar ready to swap, just in case his one went un serviceable on pre checks.

In fact in the Sqn orbs it showed the w/c flew different serial spits.

but in his logbook it stated he always flew his spitfire with his personal codes.

Cheers

Jerry

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HiThe military wayThe squadron leader wants......The squadron leader gets .....Unless you wanted un savoury duties or a posting somewhere

Then we should see more of these privileges! And why not some big USAAF style nose art? With so many squadron leaders I'm sure there would have been someone with even more flamboyant tastes who'd have wanted something more than just 2 different colors on the top sides of his aircraft.

Or maybe a squadron leader was just an officer, with many superiors above himself who had to work within a system set by others even higher ranking persons..

Again, we can propose any explanation we want whenever unusual looking colors appear in an old color picture, but some are more likely than others. I may sound boring but to me here it's down to one if these:

- variables in the picture

- quality of the supposedly correct paint and its application

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snapback.png

You may remember this one then XVTonker:







More pics here:
http://s20.photobuck.../library/Victor

These were taken at what used to be Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire sometime in the mid-1980s.

Someone else mentioned this post above...

OK before I get shot down in flames, I Know its a different era, its different paint materials, different film, different photographer...etc., etc., BUT look at the differing shades of Dark Green here. These shades would have began life as a single similar (if not identical) shade.. look how it varies from a brown tone to a dark slate greyish colour......

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Ah yes, the year a Victor came to the Pease AFB Open House- I've got some pictures of her too, if they haven't been destroyed by sitting in my storage by now!

bob

p.s. And considering that "Victor" was one of the short-list possibilities for the new & improved Griffon "Spitfire", it's still relevant :evil_laugh:

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All three surfaces on the Victor tail are at a different angle to the illumination falling on them (check the highlight on the tail fin fairing spine against the highlight on the upper fuselage curve which more or less reflect the same "colour") and the likelihood is that only the side of the fin gets anywhere near Newton's "perfect reflection". That doesn't mean the colours are not different - the straight demarcation lines suggest that they are and that patch painting has occurred - but it might mean the differences are not as pronounced as they appear in the photograph. Either way we could not trust that photograph to provide a reliable match to the actual paint colours.

This is the best thread yet. Everything already demonstrated in other threads about planes of reflectivity under variable illumination and the unreliability of film emulsion in reproducing true colour has been disregarded in favour of speculation based it seems on an unshakeable belief that the colour in the image and the colour of the paint must be one and the same. I mean we can see that for ourselves, with our own eyes...

When a spectrophotometer records a colour value it does so under a controlled illumination with a "perfect reflection" angle. Alter the illumination parameters of the equipment and the hue value reading will be different. If a flat square of standard Humbrol colour is tilted this way and that at a level with the eyes under various forms of illumination coming from various directions the effect can be appreciated. You know exactly what the colour is and you can "see" it regardless of how you tilt the square but you will still see differences in its reflectivity and hue from slight to dramatic. This is before the question of variance in applied paints is considered or the effects of weathering on those applied paints.

Nick

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Someone else mentioned this post above...

Oh yes... I think it serves a purpose here, showing there are different variations of the same colour on this same airframe - not lighting effects -, on the panel on which the serial is vs. its surroundings (DG), on the fin leading edge vs. the panel directly behind (DSG), and very pronounced on the panel a foot or so behind the entry door (also DSG - or possibly Sky Grey, really ?).

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All three surfaces on the Victor tail are at a different angle to the illumination falling on them (check the highlight on the tail fin fairing spine against the highlight on the upper fuselage curve which more or less reflect the same "colour") and the likelihood is that only the side of the fin gets anywhere near Newton's "perfect reflection". That doesn't mean the colours are not different - the straight demarcation lines suggest that they are and that patch painting has occurred - but it might mean the differences are not as pronounced as they appear in the photograph. Either way we could not trust that photograph to provide a reliable match to the actual paint colours.

This is the best thread yet. Everything already demonstrated in other threads about planes of reflectivity under variable illumination and the unreliability of film emulsion in reproducing true colour has been disregarded in favour of speculation based it seems on an unshakeable belief that the colour in the image and the colour of the paint must be one and the same. I mean we can see that for ourselves, with our own eyes...

When a spectrophotometer records a colour value it does so under a controlled illumination with a "perfect reflection" angle. Alter the illumination parameters of the equipment and the hue value reading will be different. If a flat square of standard Humbrol colour is tilted this way and that at a level with the eyes under various forms of illumination coming from various directions the effect can be appreciated. You know exactly what the colour is and you can "see" it regardless of how you tilt the square but you will still see differences in its reflectivity and hue from slight to dramatic. This is before the question of variance in applied paints is considered or the effects of weathering on those applied paints.

Nick

Yeah, wot he said......I think?

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Oh yes... I think it serves a purpose here, showing there are different variations of the same colour on this same airframe - not lighting effects -, on the panel on which the serial is vs. its surroundings (DG), on the fin leading edge vs. the panel directly behind (DSG), and very pronounced on the panel a foot or so behind the entry door (also DSG - or possibly Sky Grey, really ?).

How do you know they are not lighting effects? Prove they are not lighting effects. Prove those colours you see are actually the paint colours you ascribe to them.

Nick

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All three surfaces on the Victor tail are at a different angle to the illumination falling on them (check the highlight on the tail fin fairing spine against the highlight on the upper fuselage curve which more or less reflect the same "colour") and the likelihood is that only the side of the fin gets anywhere near Newton's "perfect reflection". That doesn't mean the colours are not different - the straight demarcation lines suggest that they are and that patch painting has occurred - but it might mean the differences are not as pronounced as they appear in the photograph. Either way we could not trust that photograph to provide a reliable match to the actual paint colours.

This is the best thread yet. Everything already demonstrated in other threads about planes of reflectivity under variable illumination and the unreliability of film emulsion in reproducing true colour has been disregarded in favour of speculation based it seems on an unshakeable belief that the colour in the image and the colour of the paint must be one and the same. I mean we can see that for ourselves, with our own eyes...

When a spectrophotometer records a colour value it does so under a controlled illumination with a "perfect reflection" angle. Alter the illumination parameters of the equipment and the hue value reading will be different. If a flat square of standard Humbrol colour is tilted this way and that at a level with the eyes under various forms of illumination coming from various directions the effect can be appreciated. You know exactly what the colour is and you can "see" it regardless of how you tilt the square but you will still see differences in its reflectivity and hue from slight to dramatic. This is before the question of variance in applied paints is considered or the effects of weathering on those applied paints.

Nick

I couldn't agree more.

If I'm modelmaking and I'm thinking "Well, it'll be near enough for farm work" I'll use the mark 0 eyeball (mine are less advanced than the Mk1) and get on with it. If I'm going to make a definitive statement that something must be xyz (whether colour, composition or whatever), then I put my faith in spectrophotometers, mass spectrometers and infra-red spectroscopy (not necessarily in that order!) and visual comparsion of tertiary or quarternary evidence won't even get considered.

If someone says "they look different in the photo" I'm happy to say "They do indeed" and leave it at that. If someone says "That bit must be colour A and that bit colour B, because they look different in the photo", I want to see some science to back up the assertion.

And in case anyone thinks this is a problem limited to relatively modern issues like aeroplanes, look up Yellow X and the debates over THAT!

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I couldn't agree more.

If I'm modelmaking and I'm thinking "Well, it'll be near enough for farm work" I'll use the mark 0 eyeball (mine are less advanced than the Mk1) and get on with it. If I'm going to make a definitive statement that something must be xyz (whether colour, composition or whatever), then I put my faith in spectrophotometers, mass spectrometers and infra-red spectroscopy (not necessarily in that order!) and visual comparsion of tertiary or quarternary evidence won't even get considered.

If someone says "they look different in the photo" I'm happy to say "They do indeed" and leave it at that. If someone says "That bit must be colour A and that bit colour B, because they look different in the photo", I want to see some science to back up the assertion.

And in case anyone thinks this is a problem limited to relatively modern issues like aeroplanes, look up Yellow X and the debates over THAT!

A-ha, thats where I've been going wrong then........Instead of putting my faith in good old humbrol and Xtracrylic I REALLY needed spectrophotometers, mass spectrometers and infra-red spectroscopy thingey's.....................E.Bay here I come....

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A-ha, thats where I've been going wrong then........Instead of putting my faith in good old humbrol and Xtracrylic I REALLY needed spectrophotometers, mass spectrometers and infra-red spectroscopy thingey's.....................E.Bay here I come....

Bill, a word of advice: mass spectrometry isn't just a scientific technique, it's more like a life sentence :wicked:

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A-ha, thats where I've been going wrong then........Instead of putting my faith in good old humbrol and Xtracrylic I REALLY needed spectrophotometers, mass spectrometers and infra-red spectroscopy thingey's.....................E.Bay here I come....

Get your wallet ready then. You'll never complain about kit prices again.

Nick

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How do you know they are not lighting effects? Prove they are not lighting effects. Prove those colours you see are actually the paint colours you ascribe to them.

Nick

I cannot prove what I bracketed as "DG" and "DSG" to make clear which areas I pointed to are those colours, and that was not my point; perhaps they aren't actually variations of the same colour, that's true. My point was that no one knows for sure if they are the same or not, have weathered differently or not, are from a different paint batch or not, and no one can know really for sure re. our original object of discussion Spit.

I may not be the smartest person in the world, and especially not regarding physics, and I always like to learn, so I look forward to you explaining me the lighting effect that affects only a panel and manages to L-shape around a continuous surface for a specific panel, not affecting the immediate surroundings.

Edited by tempestfan
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....., so I look forward to you explaining me the lighting effect that affects only a panel and manages to L-shape around a continuous surface for a specific panel, not affecting the immediate surroundings.

Maybe THATS what the spectrophotometers, mass spectrometers and infra-red spectroscopy thingey's are used for...................

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I may not be the smartest person in the world, and especially not regarding physics, and I always like to learn, so I look forward to you explaining me the lighting effect that affects only a panel and manages to L-shape around a continuous surface for a specific panel, not affecting the immediate surroundings.

I did acknowledge that in post # 111:-

"That doesn't mean the colours are not different - the straight demarcation lines suggest that they are and that patch painting has occurred"

HTH

Nick

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Gents,

Please refrain from repeating pictures in quoted posts ad nauseum. I have just spent a bit of time deleting duplicates. Its annoying for those on tablets, phones and small monitors to scroll past repeated pictures and doubly annoying for the mod team to have to constantly dip back in and out of this thread and those like it to delete the pictures.

Thanks

:2c:

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