Spitfire Mk.VII MD114 DU*G – Question about fuselage roundel

[Johnson]

Hi All,

 

A well known Mk.VII which it is almost certain that P/O (later Sqn Ldr) Ian Blair flew on 20th February 1944 when he shot down the Bf 109 G-6/R3 piloted by Oberleutnant Helmut Quednau on his way to photograph the British Fleet at Scapa Flow.

 

All the profiles (and models made) that I've seen depict the aircraft with Type C fuselage roundels. But I wonder if this correct?

 

Looking closely at the photograph, I think I can see a thin dark line around the roundel which would be yellow if it were a Type C1 Roundel and it had been photographed with orthochromatic film. As we probably all know, orthochromatic film was sometimes used in WW2 and, due to its sensitivity, it portrays yellow objects as black or very dark.

 

 

Here's a photograph of a Spitfire Vc photographed with orthochromatic film, resulting in the yellow ring of the Type C1 roundel being shown as black or very dark.

 

 

I think its possible that MD114 actually had Type C1 roundels. Any opinions?

 

Thanks,

 

Charlie

[Graham Boak]

I'd have thought it near certain, and am surprised to see it suggested otherwise.

[Dave Fleming]

I would have agreed with Graham, and indeed always assumed it had the yellow outline, the blue tone being lighter than the red on the fin points to ortho.

 

However there is another shot of it in Spitfire at war 3 (pg 80) alongside a 'normal' mk V and the outer roundel surround on the V is 'normal' shade (or a little dark, suggesting a filter) but the mk VII still has a dark outer ring

[Dave Fleming]

20E3A1C4-98AA-4556-B734-241A74972027 by DaveFleming68, on Flickr

Edited March 18, 2019 by Dave Fleming

[gingerbob]

Interesting.  I had been thinking that I could just make out the yellow tips of the prop on the first photo, and Dave's other photo confirms that.  I suppose the yellow border was rather superfluous on the light paint, but the normal (?) style of roundel/flash on the high altitude scheme was just blue and red.

[Johnson]

Hmmm...

 

I hadn't seen the photo Dave posted. The tips of the props are certainly yellow, and don't look dark 😖. Kind of undermines my theory?

 

But 

28 minutes ago, Dave Fleming said:

the blue tone being lighter than the red on the fin points to ortho

is another pointer to ortho film.

 

Need to think some more! 🙄

[FinnAndersen]

I'm also doing this one, so interested.

 

100$ question is: If it wasn't yellow, what colour was it and why?

[Graham Boak]

The marking were presumably added by 312 Sq but were retained afterwards and DU is recorded as the code of Skeabrae's Station Flight by this time.  Whether this meant any practical difference in the operation of the high altitude specials is a fair question.

 

I'm inclined to think that the outer ring was still yellow, but open to more convincing arguments.  However it doesn't look that different to the ring on the Mk.V behind it.  That ring does look different depending upon the background colour - it appears lighter against the Dark Green than it does against the Ocean Grey, the Ocean Grey being nearer to the Medium Sea Grey on top of the Mk.VII.

[Johnson]

Looking at Dave's photo from the front, and going back to the point he made about the fin flash red being darker than the blue, on the Spit behind MD114 the red does seem a tad lighter than the blue on both the fuselage roundel and the fin flash and the tips of the props are clearly yellow. All this points to normal panchromatic film.

 

Again, not so sure about my original theory, as Finn says;

36 minutes ago, FinnAndersen said:

If it wasn't yellow, what colour was it and why?

Ho hum...

[Graham Boak]

https://www.brainhq.com/brain-resources/brain-teasers/adelsons-same-color-illusion

 

This is what I was thinking of, and what we are seeing in these photos.

[Johnson]

I'm inclined to agree.

The band around the blue of the fuselage roundel may be a bit of an optical illusion. I'm not sure that a definite answer is possible with the photos available,

[stever219]

The normal proportion of the “Type C1” National Marking iii is 12:16:32:36 working from Red to Yellow.  The proportions on MD114 appears to be 12:16:36.  Also look how close the outer rim of the roundel is to the squadron code letters and compare it to the gap between the two letters of the code: the gap from roundel to aircraft letter appears unusually large by comparison with other Spitfires, albeit of different marks.

 

My surmise is that, for whatever reason, the outer Yellow ring has a fresh coat of Blue over it, which would probably look darker than the paint that’s been on the aeroplane for a little while.  Could ‘114 have been caught part -way through having her markings changed from “C1” to “B” to tie in with the rest of her colour scheme?  Unless we can find a definitive record of an instruction to repaint national markings and/or the apocryphal “chap who was there at the time with a paintbrush” (and a very good memory!) we’ve no real way of being 1000% sure.

[Dave Fleming]

3 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

The marking were presumably added by 312 Sq but were retained afterwards and DU is recorded as the code of Skeabrae's Station Flight by this time. 

 

DU was adopted as the Station Flight code when 312 were there in 1943, but the mk VII was delivered after that date. It never actually flew with 312, but did fly with 313.

 

 

[Johnson]

38 minutes ago, stever219 said:

My surmise is that, for whatever reason, the outer Yellow ring has a fresh coat of Blue over it, which would probably look darker than the paint that’s been on the aeroplane for a little while.

Thanks SteveR, a very plausible explanation.

[FinnAndersen]

I hope that you don't mind my resurrection of this thread, but I have a question to the high altitude painting scheme:

 

Was this Medium sea grey upper and Azure blue undersurfaces or what?

 

TIA

Finn

[Troy Smith]

24 minutes ago, FinnAndersen said:

Was this Medium sea grey upper and Azure blue undersurfaces or what?

MSG uppers, PRU blue underside.

standard colours for very high altitude fighters

see here 

https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Modeling-References/Camoflage-Markings/01-Supermarine-Spitfire

note picture of schemes on page 4

[FinnAndersen]

1 hour ago, Troy Smith said:

MSG uppers, PRU blue underside.

standard colours for very high altitude fighters

see here 

https://boxartden.com/reference/gallery/index.php/Modeling-References/Camoflage-Markings/01-Supermarine-Spitfire

note picture of schemes on page 4

Thanks, sorry about the trick question, but I'm sitting with DK decals "Spitfire Mk VI/VII/IX High altitude fighters" which, to my surprise, specify Azure blue undersurfaces.

 

Of course the model IS painted, luckily with PRU blue underside

 

Phew...

 

/Finn