Color of Italian Insignia on WWI Aircraft Ansaldo SVA.5

[Oriskany]

 

Hi guys

i did some research in these days but i didn't found any new information.

The only confirmed colors of the tails are green, White, blue with White stars and Yellow with red stars...all others colors are assumptions

So i suggest you to use one of these colors, mainly green (obviously, this is my personal conclusion).

For the upper wing i suggest you to use the reference of the box for SVA number 3, sand Yellow base with green and brown spots.

The same colors were find on the upper wing of an Ansaldo Balilla recently restored in Italy, so i suppose SVA had same camo scheme.

I'll try to find more informations in the next days

[Oriskany]

I found more informations about pattern of upper wing camouflage.

It was three tone with base sand Yellow, continuous green strip and brown spots.

I made a quickly and horrible demo  of the pattern

 

 

Hope this can help you

 

[silver11]

Wow! Can you share the source? I would greatly appreciate it!

[Oriskany]

Here you can see upper wing colors of an Ansaldo Balilla before restoring, i presume SVA used the same

 

https://gavs-torino.com/category/velivoli-restauri-eseguiti/

 

The pattern is suggestion of a expert modeller of my club, he made some research time ago to do his SVA, and if you analyze your posted image you can see a continuous strip of one color.

i doubt you can find other clarifying images about colors.
I bought recently a new book on Ansaldo SVA, very good technical informations and pics, but nothing about 87th squadron's tails/upper wings colors
 

Edited November 5, 2016 by Oriskany

[silver11]

Thank you for sharing that with me. After long hard thinking and debating with myself, I'm more leaning now toward blue color for the tail. Usually it depicts as color of the plane #5, however as the book stated the personal recollection of the pilot who flew that plane the color was green. Since 3 and 5 somewhat similar in terms of writing I think it could be ground for confusion and making me thinking that if 5 was in fact green, then the blue could be the color of 3.

As for the camouflage pattern, a saw the image of the completed upper wing of Ballia, however if color could be similar to the SAV 5, the pattern based on that top in flight picture is different. On the Ballia it seems as elongated brushes with a flat brush which creates sort of rectangular elongated spots, while SVA 5 shows rather smaller round sort of dotted pattern. I have few ideas how to depict that that I want to test first on scrap piece of plastic. I'll show you once I'll have it.

While I was thinking about all that stuff I finished guns for the kit:

[silver11]

Here is my attempt to make upper wing camouflage:

[bertopinal]

Pay attention : the camouflage of the restored A-1 was similar at that found in the original fabric, but it was NOT the wartime camo. By far i know this plane was 'restored' in the Thirties, with the colours available.

 Usualy the airplanes produced in Italy during the WW I where left in natural colours : wood, doped fabric ; the exception where the Macchi  Ni-11 & 17 silver doped and the SPA XIII left in the original french camo. On the front the upper surfaces where often camouflaged using available paint sponged or brushed over the doped fabric.

  The pictures of the SVA  in production show un-camouflaged surfaces, also the pictures of the planes at front show very different solution : camo, no-camo, half-camo...........

 Alas is only in italian, but very recently was issued an interesting book :  Ansaldo SVA   with a lot of interesting pictures.

(  http://www.avioebooks.com/home/?product=gli-aerei-che-hanno-fatto-la-storia-ansaldo-s-v-a-preordine-con-spedizione )

 

r.

[Oriskany]

6 hours ago, bertopinal said:

 

 Alas is only in italian, but very recently was issued an interesting book :  Ansaldo SVA   with a lot of interesting pictures.

(  http://www.avioebooks.com/home/?product=gli-aerei-che-hanno-fatto-la-storia-ansaldo-s-v-a-preordine-con-spedizione )

 

r.

That is the book  i bought recently, very nice SVA reference
 

[silver11]

The books seems to be very interesting reference, my question to the owners of this book - does it have any new pictures (beside the one that was showed here) of the top wing camouflage and does it have pictures of #3 plane?

[Oriskany]

There aren't new pics about number 3 plane, and there are some images of camouflaged upper wings, but all are taken from the ground and are not more useful of pics than you have  posted before.

But the book (only in italian) is a really nice reference with a lot of original tecnical drawings, images of  SVA family, combat use,  pilots memories and an interesting section of post war planes, including racers.

 

[silver11]

After few experiments with different type of masks I think I finally found the right technique, here is the result on one wing:

 

By the way, I choose blue for the color of the tail.

[ClaudioN]

On 28/10/2016 at 10:55 PM, JackG said:

Would there be any question on Fly's research on decals/tail colours? The lion badge was official for 87th Squadriglia , but their first profile has some kind of dragon snake emblem for the same squadron - pilot's personal motif?

 

regards,

Jack

Not a personal motif, but the coat-of-arms of the Visconti family, who had been the lords of Milan in Renaissance times. It was the emblem of a different unit.

The 87th Squadriglia St. Mark's winged lion had been the emblem of the Venetian Republic.