Bpf and East Indies FAA Roundel on Blue

[Scimitar F1]

Hi 

 

Working towards starting my 1/32 scale FAA Hellcat. Was wondering for a GSB airframe would the blue of the Roundel be the underlying GSB colour or would it be Roundel blue? 

 

Will

[Troy Smith]

27 minutes ago, Scimitar F1 said:

Hi 

 

Working towards starting my 1/32 scale FAA Hellcat. Was wondering for a GSB airframe would the blue of the Roundel be the underlying GSB colour or would it be Roundel blue? 

 

Will

 

AFAIK the BF and BEIF marking were applied by the RN,  so would be roundel blue,  the original US applied markings I'm not sure of,  though US Insignia Blue is very close to MAP blue.

By this I mean that Lend Lease Hellcats were factory painted with B/C/C1 type roundels,  and the specfic BEIF/BPF apllied in theatre

eg

 

the chaps who are likely to know are @iang   for the BEIF/BPF info and for Lend-Lease Spec @Dana Bell  is most likely to know,  and is still researching,  so  who  knows what he's turned up recently.

 

HTH

 

 

[Seahawk]

Towards the end of the war, to speed production, the US insignia on certain types (I think Hellcat but will leave it to @Dana Bell to say with authority) were painted in white only (ie leaving the Glossy Sea Blue background to substitute for the Insignia Blue).  As far as I know this was never done for FAA aircraft, which were just a tiny subset of total production.  

[85sqn]

Factory applied Roundel blue, then as I understand the BPF roundels were all done in theatre and so would have been painted by ships/sqn crews. 

 

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

This GSB Corsair clearly shows the blue insignia as a different shade to the surrounding surface, as does the Yeovilton museum Corsair in its original unrestored paint.

 

I'm still looking for decent pictures of GSB Hellcats to make the same judgement.

[Scimitar F1]

That makes sense as it was more likely they had Roundel blue in the stores than GSB.

 

That poses an interesting question what dis they use to touch up Repairs? 

 

 

[Troy Smith]

57 minutes ago, Scimitar F1 said:

That poses an interesting question what dis they use to touch up Repairs? 

Maybe US GSB paint? 

in the  case of  the BPF they  were part of a US  force and supply chain, so  it would be available.

It's a good point,  and I suspect when supplies of Lend Lease Hellcats and Corsairs went over to GSB they may have added paint into the spares manifest for this eventuality?

Again,perhaps @Dana Bell  may have turned up some info on this.

 

Also,  GSB is pretty tough,  a read of the KD431 Time Capsule Corsair shows how well the original paint stood up. 

 

The other question is were all Lend-Lease GSB types supplied in standard FAA markings,  which is what I assume,   and only those for the BPF BEIF getting repainted.

 

Given the switch to equivalent colors,  I presume the British markings were to British spec but in US colors,  IE Insignia Blue, Insignia Red, etc?

These are pretty close to MAP shades,  the red a bit brighter perhaps...  in a rush,  I was invoved in a discussion on ANA reds a while back,  which I'll need to look up.

 

 

[Max Headroom]

Pardon my ignorance but what are GSB BF and BEIF?

 

Trevor

[Seahawk]

11 minutes ago, Max Headroom said:

Pardon my ignorance but what are GSB BF and BEIF?

Glossy Sea Blue (or SBG Sea Blue Gloss), British Pacific Fleet and British East Indies Fleet (usually seen as East Indies Fleet (EIF)).

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

On 08/02/2018 at 6:35 PM, Max Headroom said:

Pardon my ignorance but what are GSB BF and BEIF?

 

Trevor

Apologies Trevor. I'm as guilty as everyone else here on that.

 

Seahawk has summed it up well. I'll just toss in for the benefit of anyone reading from the shadows that isn't aware that Glossy Sea Blue was an actual paint name and not just a gentlemanly agreed description of a paint.

 

Glossy Sea Blue (or, indeed, Sea Blue Gloss) was ANA623 and came into use initially with the US Navy but quickly became a sort of default exterior paint spec for factories building US naval aircraft designs. As a result, our contemporary Lend-Lease Hellcats, Corsairs etc turned up painted in ANA623 same as those destined for service with the US forces.