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Spitfire Mk.I - Black port wing, IFF


cynicaljohnny

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Calling all Spitfire experts.....

 

What period were the port wings of Spitfires painted black? Was this applied at the factory, or while in service? Also, once the decision to chance to sky undersides was made, were black wings overpainted, or was it left to attrition and replacements to ring in the changes?

 

Secondly, from what date/serial was IFF a standard fit?

 

(Basically, I'm trying to figure out how to build/paint Spit R6835 of 603 Sqn as at late Aug 1940....)

 

Thanks in advance

 

John

 

 

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John

 

Some answers - RAF fighters had black  port wings until June 1940, when the undersides were to be sky. This was then amended to the black port sky starboard pattern in Nov 1940 and remained in place until April 1941. 

 

Repainting was carried out on existing airframes at unit (or station level?) so your Spit should have had a sky port wing (or at least an approximation of sky, given the shortage of sky at the time).

 

Pete

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A couple of qualifications to http://spitfiresite.com/2010/04/spitfire-masts-and-aerials.html/2.  

 

Tropicalised Mk.V Spitfires were equipped as standard with the TR Mk.9, as described in the Spitfire Mk.V Manual, from Arms and Armour Press.  At some stage this was updated.

 

The early Rotol examples were the metal blades, which lacked the thick blade roots.  This has been seen on a photo of an aircraft downed during the Dunkirk operations.

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