69 Squadron Malta Hurricane

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Hello everybody ... Im looking for some information about Hurricane’s Mk.1A V7101 & Mk.1A P3144 flown by Flt.Lt. George burges. I have a few profiles (yes i know) listed with #69 squadron @ Luqa. However they all show the Hurricanes painted in a solid color with exception for the vertical/horizontal stabilizers. The profiles show everything from a medium grey to almost black. I have read they were for Reconnaissance ?  I’ve read medium sea grey as a possible color ? Is PRU blue another possibilty ? 

Any thoughts, ideas, help would be greatly appreciated. 

 

Dennis

[larumivi1951]

PRU Blue it is:

Rudolph

 

[occa]

But where are the camera ports ?

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Is it possible they're field modified ? And there is only a single port in the belly ? What i have read says these were used for shipping recon ? Looking for targets ? Would you need a camera or just a radio to report rough co-ordinates  of your target ?  

 

[Troy Smith]

This plane has been much debated, the colour was apparently Bosun Blue

the posts by @tonyot on this linked.

The profiles are junk I believe

here's the only known photo

 

Have a read of the links and see if Tony has turned up any more info.

 

HTH

[occa]

Hard to believe this is Bosun Blue which should be about the same non-brightness as the roundel blue on the fin and the roundel on the wings.

Normally when Bosun blue was used the roundels on the wing was of a lighter blue or had a yellow surround for contrast.

 

This ain't Bosun blue therefore, IMO

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

I had a feeling as soon as I typed the word “Malta” it would open the proverbial  ! However since I need the info I had to do it. Thank you to everyone that posted and I will definitely have to do some reading. 

 

Dennis

[Rogue]

Doing a bit of research for a couple Malta Spits,.....had to take a break from the can. 

[Selwyn]

4 hours ago, occa said:

Hard to believe this is Bosun Blue which should be about the same non-brightness as the roundel blue on the fin and the roundel on the wings.

Normally when Bosun blue was used the roundels on the wing was of a lighter blue or had a yellow surround for contrast.

 

This ain't Bosun blue therefore, IMO

 This may be out of left field a little bit, but If you look at the  chap on the right he is wearing a forage cap, its a fair assumption this is RAF uniform blue grey in colour   and the crew shirts and shorts are most probably KD (Khaki drill).  the airframe colour appears  much lighter than the forage cap  and KD's, which does not suggest Bosun blue.

 

Selwyn

Edited September 10, 2018 by Selwyn

[tonyot]

5 hours ago, occa said:

Hard to believe this is Bosun Blue which should be about the same non-brightness as the roundel blue on the fin and the roundel on the wings.

Normally when Bosun blue was used the roundels on the wing was of a lighter blue or had a yellow surround for contrast.

 

This ain't Bosun blue therefore, IMO

The photo was taken during the conversion from a fighter into the PR Spec,....... note the antenna mast has been removed,....... I spoke to the ground crew who even gave me the mixture of the paint that he was given to result in Bosun Blue,.... which was to match those used for PR duties in N. Africa.

 

Cheers

          Tony

[occa]

That would explain it if the photo shows the AC before the repaint.

Tony did you post the Bosun blue mix somewhere already ?

 

Cheers,

Martin

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

4 minutes ago, occa said:

did you post the Bosun blue mix somewhere already ?

Its in the links that Troy posted. 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

This is a colorswatch i found online for Bosun blue.

Would this be a correct color ? Or would it be more grey/black ? Since im asking does anyone have a schematic for the camera placement ?

    Why does talking about “Malta” always open a  ? I would think after 77 years it should have been hashed out already and be a standard piece of knowledge ? Of course even im not insane enough to open the whole spitfire color question. 

 

Dennis

[Work In Progress]

10 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

 I would think after 77 years it should have been hashed out already and be a standard piece of knowledge ?

There is a wishful and somewhat idealistic notion amongst modellers that the information available on historical events generally becomes more detailed and accurate over time, whereas overall it is the opposite in the long run.   To quote Clausius, in relation to the second law of thermodynamics: "The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum".

 

Eyewitnesses die, Physical evidence is mostly destroyed: the relics fade and discolour and are 'restored' according to the popular theories of the day. Records are lost and deteriorate. Conspiracy theories and speculations gain ground, becoming as widely-percieved as whatever the facts originally were. People start to use other people's models, or paintings, as sources for each other, each used to prop up the next, and the snowball of assumptions and introduced errors rolls downhill, growing bigger than the actual objective evidence available, and cascading into things that "everyone knows".

 

Like the perception that Romans and ancient Greeks had a lot of white marble statues around the place, because we see them today in museums without their paint, or that the interior of a mediaeval stone castle was stone-coloured, and lit by torches attached to the walls, because that's what is easiest for the film and TV industries to film.

Edited September 11, 2018 by Work In Progress
removed gibberish

[Seahawk]

5 hours ago, Work In Progress said:

Eyewitnesses die, Physical evidence is mostly destroyed: the relics fade and discolour and are 'restored' according to the popular theories of the day. Records are lost and deteriorate. Conspiracy theories and speculations gain ground, becoming as widely-percieved as whatever the facts originally were. People start to use other people's models, or paintings, as sources for each other, each used to prop up the next, and the snowball of assumptions and introduced errors rolls downhill, growing bigger than the actual objective evidence available, and cascading into things that "everyone knows".

And the snowball has gained considerable additional momentum from the fact that nowadays anyone, regardless of their knowledge of the subject, can publish profiles online for the delectation and deception (usually unintentional) of the waiting world.  And, since said profiles can be a commercial commodity, churning them out by the yard sometimes takes priority over getting them right or even conceding that there might be unknowns.    NB I am not tarring all profile producers with the same brush: I know some to be very punctilious in their research.

Edited September 11, 2018 by Seahawk

[Work In Progress]

Profiles and scale drawings are definitely double-edged swords.

 

In plastic scale modelling competition we are quite lucky that accuracy of the model and the colour scheme are not taken into consideration. Ony the quality of the craftsmanship in construction and finishing.

 

In flying scale modelling competition I have to provide a 3-view of the type and documentation of the specific airframe I am modelling: either photos or a colour profile.  And the model is judged against those. This has two adverse consequences.

1. you can't compete with a model of a poorly-documented aeroplane, so we get the same individual examples of a given subject modelled tme after time after time. One bloke I know has done the same SE5A about eight times in various classes, because he has excellent documentation for it, and the documentation is a bigger hurdle then building and flying the model

2. you are obliged to follow the errors of the documentation, and this is an issue with many published 3-views.

 

So, ironically, in plastic modelling I can build a model that's accurate, but the judges don't care. But in flying scale, I have to build a model that I know is wrong, to match the available scale drawings, and the judges do care.

[tonyot]

16 hours ago, occa said:

That would explain it if the photo shows the AC before the repaint.

Tony did you post the Bosun blue mix somewhere already ?

 

Cheers,

Martin

Its in my book `No Place For Beginners' Martin,........ I cannot get access to a copy at the moment, nor my notes,..... sorry,..... I`m rather incapacitated at the moment!

 

Cheers

          Tony

[tonyot]

If it helps,...... here is my take on this model using the info that I gleaned while researching my book `No Place For Beginners'. The model looks lighter than it actually is in this photo,.... but under bright Maltese sunlight it would probably look like this in real life. The gun blast tubes are supposed to look doped over too;

 

 

I hope that this one,.... which shows the `actual' colour of the model better also shows the camera ports. In this aircraft the radios were removed and the rear of the bay used for cameras. Info differs in quite a few respects re the extra fuel tanks and cameras and reading between the lines it looks like there was much experimentation and changing things around,...... it was apparently a bugger to fly and CoG was on a knife edge!

 

 

Note it was also fitted with a Rotol prop to give it a better climb rate,..... in order to get as high as possible for its photo sorties.

 

Cheers

          Tony

Edited September 11, 2018 by tonyot

[Work In Progress]

That's a lovely moody model. The Rotol prop would also have helped to offset the CG problem to some modest extent. But even so I imagine it was a sod to fly, requiring a well above-average degree of skill and experience. Hurricanes are weak in longitudinal stability to start with, and notoriously badly behaved if the CG moves back for any reason. But of course if you're on Malta, anything goes if it serves a good military purpose and someone can be found to cope with the disadvantages which offset the practical benefits of the modification.

 

Any pics of the underneath? It would make a good colour scheme for indoor free-flight, being simple and achievable mainly in dyed tissue. But I'd like to get the camera ports right.

[PhoenixII]

Morning WiP,

looking at Tony's model, two camera ports, vertical orientation in tandem, on the centre line? (more likely with a left/right offset)

leading camera just forward of the trailing edge, aft, just beyond the trailing edge.

Click the photo and it takes you to Tony's flicka account, there you can play to your hearts content!

[Graham Boak]

The Rotol prop would not have helped the cg position, but made it move aft.  Witness the Sea Hurricane Mk.I for which the DH propeller was compulsory because it was heavier, and compensated for the arrester gear.  Given the number of Mk.Is converted for PR duties, this doesn't seem to have been a particular problem.  Regardless of the pilot workload, a good stable platform is required for the PR role so an aircraft that waffled about wouldn't have been acceptable.  I wonder if the pilot's armour was removed, as that would have helped considerably.  Other than this, it may be that the removal of the armament and ammunition would have been beneficial and there may have been some shuffling about of equipment.  In the end, there is always ballast applied to the engine mounts.

 

However don't badmouth the entire fleet: the cg problem only applied to the Mk.I, particularly with armour, because the longer engine of the Mk.II moved the cg forward.  There is of course always the trade-off between stability and response - I suspect that the Mk.I was more agile than the Mk.II.

[tonyot]

Reading the accounts by George Burges (one of the original members of the Hal Far Fighter Flight) who flew most of the early Hurricane PR flights (he was a trained General Recce pilot) he said that they were a complete pig to fly, tail heavy and very unstable. The armour was removed to lighten the aircraft and help balance the cg as much as possible due to the cameras and the Rotol propeller was needed to increase the rate of climb, as Sicily and Italy were so close and the aircraft relied on high altitude.  

Some of his accounts re modifications do not tally with those of the engineering officer who made the modifications,...... but then the accounts of Sea Gladiator modifications also don`t tally in some areas,..... so there is some confusion when it comes to fuel and radio especially. The engineering officer mentions putting a long range tank from a Wellington inside the rear fuselage,..... but I cannot see where this would have fit due to the bracing wires and also the cg problems this would cause. As for radio,....the rado mast was removed and I cannot see where the radio would fit as cameras took up the space,..... unless a small VHF set was fitted?

 

My model was mostly made using written evidence plus the one photo showing the aircraft during modification.

 

Hope this helps,

                         Tony  

[tonyot]

On 9/10/2018 at 5:37 PM, occa said:

Hard to believe this is Bosun Blue which should be about the same non-brightness as the roundel blue on the fin and the roundel on the wings.

Normally when Bosun blue was used the roundels on the wing was of a lighter blue or had a yellow surround for contrast.

 

This ain't Bosun blue therefore, IMO

The photo was taken during conversion to PR configuration and before it was repainted. During my research for this book;

https://www.scalemodellingnow.com/booksaircraft-no-place-for-beginners-battle-over-malta-june-1940-september-1941

 

I actually obtained the exact mixture for the blue that was applied to the Hurricane,...... it was all but identical to the Bosun Blue adopted by 2 PRU in Egypt.

 

Cheers

           Tony