Out of my comfort zone, P.51 build

[canberra kid]

Hi All

I'm wanting to build the Tamiya Mustang as a quick moral boost, for those that know the kit, for personnel reasons I'm wanting to build option "B" (E2-S, serial number 44-13926) of the 357th Fighter Squadron, 361st Fighter Group flown by Urban L.Drew.

Now my questions, the first one is regarding the canopy the kit has two options, a "standard" and "Dallas" there is no indication in the instructions as to which should be fitted, my feeling is with the latter? But I know nothing!

Second one, is regarding the colours, the instructions call for the camouflage to be done in Olive Drab is this correct? I was thinking green? So it's over to you guys, thanks very much in advance.

John

Edited December 15, 2015 by canberra kid

[JosephLalor]

Tom Cleaver discussed that colour conundrum in one of his Modeling Madness P-51 reviews. I think he went for Olive Drab with Dark Green over the invasion stripe areas.

[canberra kid]

Tom Cleaver discussed that colour conundrum in one of his Modeling Madness P-51 reviews. I think he went for Olive Drab with Dark Green over the invasion stripe areas.

Thanks Joseph, so would that be olive drab anti glare panel on the nose with green wing topside and fuselage camo?

John

[stevej60]

Hi John I know argument has raged over this aircraft and it,s colour's for year's with some profiles even showing blue as the colour,there is a school

of thought that says it was painted in RAF stock,s of green although why the USAAC would not simply use their own OD is beyond me certainly OD

would seem the way to go.As far as the hood's are concerned I believe the rounder profiled hood is correct for most D model,s the photo seems to bare this out.

Edited December 15, 2015 by stevej60

[RJP]

Joe Baugher has this machine listed as a D rather than a K. It’s possible to see the prop is cuffed and the canopy lacks the kink at the rear that is typically (but not conclusively) a K feature. In fact, Falcon supplies an early lower profile version specifically for this machine.

That photograph is reproduced very well in the 1968 vintage Aircam volume, excellent contrast and resolution. Cleaver drags himself through a knot hole over the colours but in the end thinks they used a single colour for the green areas (OD or MAP Dark Green but not both). He might be right. Certainly I can’t see a lot of difference between the different areas.

A link: http://modelingmadness.com/review/allies/cleaver/cleaver51d.htm)

What is apparent is the inconsistent masking. The areas around the gun muzzles and the fuselage insignia and over the S are defined sharply but the tail and wing root patches are obviously freehand. The wing insignia has been masked but there is a very thin strip of NMF / aluminium lacquer showing and the edge where it meets the green is not sharp. Maybe they laid down a template rather than tape.

The antiglare panel seems to have been repainted with a non-standard (and uneven) bottom edge and uneven masking at the yellow band.

Busy, busy, busy.

Edited for clarity.

Edited December 15, 2015 by RJP

[Michou]

Green or blue? The argument/discussion continues. It was Michael Bowyer and two or three friends, possibly Alfred Alderson among them, who all recorded seeing blue-painted Mustangs. Roger Freeman comes down on the side of blue in his book, "The Mighty Eighth in Colour". If you read Tom Cleaver's article he describes the observers as "spotters". Spotters in quotation marks as if to say, "Young nerds with notebooks and not to be relied upon". This entirely overlooks the importance of aircraft recognition in Britain in WW2. The word "spotter" was commonplace at that time and there was a journal called "The Aeroplane Spotter" edited by Charles Cain who later created the Profile series of booklets. Those young guys were expert observers!

Mike

[Graham Boak]

To clear up one point in posting #4: the US abandoned the use of Olive Drab, and stocks in the UK were run down. When the time came that certain 8th Fighter Groups were allocated for use in France very soon after D-Day, it was decided that some form of top camouflage would be required. Because of the shortage of stocks of OD, some units (including most notably the 357th and, I think, the 78th) used RAF stocks of MAP Dark Green.

Re Lou IV: available colour photos can be and have been printed to show green or blue. It is worth adding to the previous posting #6 that the identification as blue was not just made by observers on the ground of aircraft in flight, but by individuals invited onto the base who saw actual airframes close-up. I find it difficult to believe that experienced observers used to seeing OD aircraft every day would suddenly identify them as blue: others seem to find it easy. However, just which aircraft were blue, and how many, and for how long, are related questions without answers.

[JWM]

Here is colour photo of both Lou IV (E2-C) and E2-S

http://s1088.photobucket.com/user/Osprey_Modelling_Blog/media/Suppliers%20pics/EagleCals/EC%20140/ReferenceP-51sEC1404.jpg.html

For me it is one colour from top, and possibly OD

Regards

Jerzy-Wojtek

Edit : and a second photo

http://s1088.photobucket.com/user/Osprey_Modelling_Blog/media/Suppliers%20pics/EagleCals/EC%20140/ReferenceP-51sEC14011.jpg.html

Edited December 16, 2015 by JWM

[Michou]

Here is colour photo of both Lou IV (E2-C) and E2-S

http://s1088.photobucket.com/user/Osprey_Modelling_Blog/media/Suppliers%20pics/EagleCals/EC%20140/ReferenceP-51sEC1404.jpg.html

For me it is one colour from top, and possibly OD

Regards

Jerzy-Wojtek

Edit : and a second photo

http://s1088.photobucket.com/user/Osprey_Modelling_Blog/media/Suppliers%20pics/EagleCals/EC%20140/ReferenceP-51sEC14011.jpg.html

But Jerzy, this is why there is so much dispute and discussion. You are trying to match ambiguous colours from a second (third?) generation photo with the written accounts of eye witnesses who were skilled observers. I do not trust colour photographs. I have seen colour prints of the Me 262 which landed at Dübendorf taken shortly before it was handed over to the Deutsches Museum. Some show brown flecks on the camouflage and some do not. Visitors to the museum in Munich never saw any brown flecks as they are some photographic artifact. I am sure that you will find profiles out there which faithfully reproduce those brown flecks.

Mike

[Mike Starmer]

For me it is apparent that all of the upper surfaces on E2-S is MAP Dark Green. Look at the shape and colour of the anti-dazzle panel. That is not Dark Olive Drab and the shape is too broad at the front. Factory applied panels were applied as a straight line as viewed from dead side view and dead head on view from the base of the front windscreen to immediately behind the spinner. In plan view this appears as a long tapered area due to the down curvature of the cowling panels, the photograph does not show this. Hence repainted. As Graham pointed out, O/D was being phased out and many US maintenance bases used British colours such as Medium sea Grey or Sky for codes too. Masking around the codes and fuselage insignia would be normal, it wouldn't be necessary of the vertical surfaces as a quick sweep of the gun is all that would be required. Around the mainplane insignia what you see is overspray. The marking has been masked but the sprayer avoided going over that and cut in around the marking using the spray fan nozzle set horizontally rather than the usual vertical,. I have done it myself and a trained sprayer could do that normally. As for blue used on these aircraft, I think this came about when many years ago where the original film type produced a heavy blue cast to prints and due to a general lack of knowledge among modellers was taken literally. Early Kodachrome colour film rendered a heavy red cast, thus US Navy under surface Light Grey appears as a slightly mauve or violet shade with the top Blue-Gray looses it's green cast and appears heavily blue on prints.

[canberra kid]

Thanks for taking the time to respond chaps, an interesting debate as I expected, I think given the evidence and my personal feelings on the subject, I'm minded to go with dark green for the topside camo, and Dallas hood. I do like the idea of blue but I'm not convinced by the evidence or lack of.

John

[Stonar]

To clear up one point in posting #4: the US abandoned the use of Olive Drab, and stocks in the UK were run down. When the time came that certain 8th Fighter Groups were allocated for use in France very soon after D-Day, it was decided that some form of top camouflage would be required.

Which begs the question, why on earth would they be painted blue? That would seem a strange choice of camouflage for operations over Europe.

I have no knowledge of the colour schemes of these aircraft, I'm just operating common sense

Cheers

Steve

[Michou]

Once again, this has nothing to do with Kodachrome or any other film. Those young guys, even if they had cameras, would have had extreme difficulty in obtaining any sort of film in wartime Britain. Colour film was totally out of the question. The subject of blue paint comes from the written accounts of experienced eye-witnesses.

Mike

As for blue used on these aircraft, I think this came about when many years ago where the original film type produced a heavy blue cast to prints and due to a general lack of knowledge among modellers was taken literally. Early Kodachrome colour film rendered a heavy red cast, thus US Navy under surface Light Grey appears as a slightly mauve or violet shade with the top Blue-Gray looses it's green cast and appears heavily blue on prints.

[grahamf]

If they were blue whatever was effecting the colour would have made the sky green, but it isn't its blue...

[JWM]

The "simple" dark blue is on national insignia - and this is certainly different. I said previously that it can be OD, but I have now doubts that OD in high level, with a lot of UV radiation will be much lighter. BTW - the E2-A in the background has higher demercation line for anti-glare and I agree that E2-S has repainted front.

What about, if it was almost black but a shade of ultra dark violet (some people name it this way) like on P47M of B.Gładych, for example? In general - P47Ms of 61 FS, 56 FG, 8 th Army USAAF were using very strange blue-base colours from the top. Perhaps those P51 too - if the colour was very close to black but with some tone of a blue, the eye witness will call it "dark blue" even if photo will reproduce it as almost flat black...

I am thinking sometimes about making model of E2-C, LouIV - so this discussion is not an academic to me also.

Regards

J-W

[TEMPESTMK5]

Good morning John

May I suggest that you build 2 Mustang one painted in Blue and the other painted in dark green ?.

Patrice

[Gwart]

Good morning John

May I suggest that you build 2 Mustang one painted in Blue and the other painted in dark green ?.

Patrice

Or just show off b+w pics of the finished model

A clearer picture of the image in post 1.

Edited December 17, 2015 by Gwart

[Stonar]

The subject of blue paint comes from the written accounts of experienced eye-witnesses.

Mike

And when were the accounts given? Did the witnesses see the aircraft at the same time? Did they discuss what the saw? There are a host of other questions too. Eyewitness accounts, even given immediately after an event are notoriously unreliable. Throw in a few years for memory to further mutate and they become even less so.

I'm not suggesting that the eyewitnesses believed that they saw anything but blue, I'm just pointing out the well known and documented fallability of human memory, no matter how well 'trained' said eyewitness might be. Any eyewitness testimony should be treated with caution.

In the USA bad eyewitness testimony was cited as a cause of erroneous conviction in 78 percent of the first 130 cases later over turned on DNA evidence.

In English Courts the Turnbull guidelines apply. Essentially it is the judge, not the jury, who decides how much weight should be given to eyewitness testimony under these guidelines. Eyewitness testimony can be very persuasive, and very wrong.

I have no axe to grind here. I don't know what colour this aircraft was, but I don't think eyewitness accounts can be a certain argument one way or the other.

Cheers

Steve

Edited December 17, 2015 by Stonar

[Nick Millman]

And when were the accounts given? Did the witnesses see the aircraft at the same time? Did they discuss what the saw? There are a host of other questions too. Eyewitness accounts, even given immediately after an event are notoriously unreliable. Throw in a few years for memory to further mutate and they become even less so.

I'm not suggesting that the eyewitnesses believed that they saw anything but blue, I'm just pointing out the well known and documented fallability of human memory, no matter how well 'trained' said eyewitness might be. Any eyewitness testimony should be treated with caution.

In the USA bad eyewitness testimony was cited as a cause of erroneous conviction in 78 percent of the first 130 cases later over turned on DNA evidence.

In English Courts the Turnbull guidelines apply. Essentially it is the judge, not the jury, who decides how much weight should be given to eyewitness testimony under these guidelines. Eyewitness testimony can be very persuasive, and very wrong.

I have no axe to grind here. I don't know what colour this aircraft was, but I don't think eyewitness accounts can be a certain argument one way or the other.

Cheers

Steve

They were not witnesses to a fleeting and probably traumatic incident in the court sense but interested observers of colour who were in most cases making contemporaneous notes about what they saw and who subsequently wrote books based on those notes. Totally different to a pilot being asked 60 years later what colour his aircraft was. Whether you like it or not (and I think you've peddled that 78% thing here before) they constitute primary evidence and frankly it doesn't matter whether you believe them or not because you are not going to be the final arbiter of what paint should go on somebody else's model.

But you can test the procedure yourself. Go to the nearest airfield armed with a notebook and pencil, observe one of the aircraft and record its serial number and the colours you see. Then photograph it. A month or six months later compare your photograph to your notes. The photograph might make you question your notes - or not - but in most cases the notes will provide better evidence of colour than how the photograph might look. The reliability of your memory doesn't come into it. Your colour acuity does.

Most of these 'arguments' come down to what people want to believe (and how they want to paint their models) and are replete with opinion - like yours. You cannot possibly determine the credibility or colour accuracy of the observers, even if all your questions were answered. In this case it is the credibility and accuracy of their reported observations vs current interpretation of how the colour photos look, the latter usually with a hefty dose of preference or prejudice thrown in first. The artist C Rupert Moore matched colours on the spot against actual Lancasters and still people argue about what he reported.

It is also an object lesson in how colour photographs tend to perpetuate rather than settle colour arguments.

Nick

[Stonar]

Do you know that these witnesses made contemporaneous notes and subsequently used them or is that hearsay or, worse, conjecture? I'm not questioning that Freeman did take notes, he said so many times. If so then the notes would provide more compelling evidence. They would certainly make a good argument that blue was indeed used on the aircraft that were observed.

My point remains that any eyewitnesss account made from memory needs to be treated with caution. Nothing more, nothing less.

I have no idea what your slightly antagonistic comment about 'peddling' the 78% thing here before pertains to. I've never mentioned it here or anywhere else before as I only found that statistic today when looking for some solid figures to quantify the lack of reliability of eyewitness testimony.

Cheers

Steve

Edited December 17, 2015 by Stonar

[canberra kid]

I wasn't intending to start a slanging match! It's important to take into accent all information, but at this distance from the time in question it can only be speculation unless the man that painted the aeroplane turns up with a can of paint he used with a reference number on it, even then I bet there would still be an heated debate about it!

I must say the idea of blue is appealing, but I can't think of reason for a blue top side for an escort/ground attack aircraft operating over Northern/Central Europe when there is an abundance of standard and accepted camouflage colours. To me green makes much more sense,

John

[Alan P]

I wasn't intending to start a slanging match!

Then you should know NEVER to ask about colours of WW2 aircraft on Britmodeller (or any other forum in fact!)

Edited December 17, 2015 by Alan P

[canberra kid]

Then you should know NEVER to ask about colours of WW2 aircraft on Britmodeller (or any other forum in fact!)

Point taken Alan, I should have known better I was involved in a similar "debate" regarding the shade of Orange used on German Canberra's.

John

[mcdonnell]

I wasn't intending to start a slanging match! It's important to take into accent all information, but at this distance from the time in question it can only be speculation unless the man that painted the aeroplane turns up with a can of paint he used with a reference number on it, even then I bet there would still be an heated debate about it!

I must say the idea of blue is appealing, but I can't think of reason for a blue top side for an escort/ground attack aircraft operating over Northern/Central Europe when there is an abundance of standard and accepted camouflage colours. To me green makes much more sense,

John

I think we'll sit down with the big 'Colour Swatch Card!!?

[Knight_Flyer]

I wasn't intending to start a slanging match! It's important to take into accent all information, but at this distance from the time in question it can only be speculation unless the man that painted the aeroplane turns up with a can of paint he used with a reference number on it, even then I bet there would still be an heated debate about it!

I must say the idea of blue is appealing, but I can't think of reason for a blue top side for an escort/ground attack aircraft operating over Northern/Central Europe when there is an abundance of standard and accepted camouflage colours. To me green makes much more sense,

John

I'm afraid there always will be a potential for "debate" when it comes to colours. In my day, heated arguments would ensue about the correct interpretation of RLM colours for Luftwaffe planes. I suppose as mentioned it comes down to how far the modeller wants to go - as near to 100% accuracy as possible or be happy the end result looks like the real plane in the photograph. Nothing wrong with either approach I think.