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Italian and French a/c wheelbays info required


MarkoZG

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Hi,

while completing my references for some types I realized that photos of wheelbay interiors of Italian and French WW2 aircraft is pretty scarce.

While both nations have excellent manuals showing sketches of most of the important details, there is complete absences of photos showing this.

So far, I only saw wheelbays of D.520, MS.406, MB.152 and CR.714 from French as well as Macchi fighters from the Italian side. Nothing about other,

especially multi-engined types. Can anyone help with documentation or at least point me to the possible source?

Thanks.

 

Marko

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Marko,

 

There are some excellent walkarounds of Italian fighters on the internet, but be careful with colors on restored airplanes. I vaguely recall a greenish-grey for cockpits and wheelbays for Italian fighters, similar to RLM02 or FS34227, and a bluish-grey for the French fighters. I'm thinking @Giorgio N is your best bet for the Eytie stuff and @BS_w for the French stuff. I have a hardback reference on WW2 Italian colors and markings, and I can check it to see what is there. It's a pair of subjects that have needed a comprehensive reference work for a long time! Wish MMP would do them in their new series of colors and markings hardbacks. I'm not much help, I'm afraid! I think you could also try a website called "Stormo!" which is a very good WW2 Regia Aeronautica reference resource. I wish I had one for French colors and markings I could suggest.

Mike

 

http://www.stormomagazine.com/

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I guess a good bet for RA types would be the various Ali d‘Italia books. I also have a very ancient publication from the 70s dealing with Italian camouflage, but it may be outdated, and I‘d have to have a look whether it has anything on interiors - if I can make enough sense of it as my Italian is less than rudimentary.

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Thank you both for the effort, but this is not what I meant, or at least I didn't explain well. I am not asking for colours, but for the look of wheel wells. In models these are just plain empty spaces and I am looking for reference material to help me detail them and box in correctly.

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That's a tough ask. There are virtually no surviving French or Italian multi-engined WW2 types and those areas didn't get photographed at the time. Most of the old manuals usually contain good drawings and/or photos of the landing gear, but not of the bays, which were of limited technical interest.  The Ali d'Italia books are the best available on Italian aircraft and the big Avions books on French (also some MMP/Stratus), but they won't give you all the answers. 

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First check if there are still existing examples of the planes you seek. In a couple of minutes I found some wheelbay shots of a Fiat G55 and an SM.79 online.

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Sorry I slid down the colour slope... Nevertheless, the Ali‘s would still be your best bet I guess for RA types. Would have to look but the big S.79 volume has a lot of interior detail covered, but most of it probably as drawings.

Two weeks ago I came across a French publication called Sacrifice covering the Breguet 693. Lots of detail stuff but would have to check again for pics of u/c bays. Otherwise, Avions mags may give you something, too, though it may be a chore finding relevant info due to the spread of feature articles over multiple issues.

 

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The problem with finding goot shots of the wheel wells of Italian types have been already pointed out; there aren't surviving examples of all types. for those that exist there are no problems and walkarounds can even be found online, like the SM.79 (there are two in Italian museums). Same for the G.55, although the one at the Italian Air Force Museum was actually rebuilt from a G.59.

Other types while not surviving in Italy can be found in countries that used them in the past, for example in Sweden there are both a Ca.313 and a Re.2000. There used to be a walkaround of the Caproni on an Italian website but looks to be unavailable at the moment. The same website had a walkaround of a Re.2002, I'll have to try and find if these are still available in some way.

For those types that don't exist anymore, sometime the manuals had pictures. Of the two types of manuals made for WW2 aircraft, generally the ones that may have pictures are the "Manuali per il Montaggio e Regolazione". The "Catalogo Nomenclatore" series on the other hand will only have drawings, as are meant as parts catalogues. Mind, some have pictures, others don't.

In general, companies usually took a lot of detail pictures of their prototypes to show construction details and for their own reference, so contemporary pictures of things like wheel wells existed for most types. The problem is that a lot of archive material has been lost in these years. Now some will think that it was because of the war and bombing and so on, unfortunately the truth is in a sense more sad: a lot of archive material survived the war only to be disposed of over the years as was simply considered old stuff that nobody needed anymore. I've been told a few years ago that Aeritalia had a lot of material on the G.55 but this was destroyed in the '70s when it was decided to clear the archives to make room for more paper related to more recent projects. Of course it makes sense from the point of view of a company that is working on aircraft production to make money and keeping old archive material is a cost for a company. Today we have a different sensitivity and material like that would be donated to museums, back then things were unfortunately different.

 

In print, the best books are still the Ali d'Italia and the Aviolibri series. The problem is that the pictures in these books come from whatever available source, and in many cases the sources are the same manuals mentioned above, so there could ot not be pictures, particularly pictures that are of use to a modeller.

Some older books had something, for example the series "Le Macchine e la Storia - Profili" from the publisher Mucchi Editore. These are still available on their website, again some have pictures of such details and some don't. Text is all in Italian and they are very cheap (from €5 to 10).

A potential source of images for the Reggiane fighters is of course the series of books written by Sergio Govi, that are the bible on everything Reggiane. I have to check what they have but I remember many pictures.

Last but not least, @tempestfanmentioned the Avions magazine, I consider this an incredible source of material. I wouldn't be surprised to find that their articles have detail shots for Italian aircraft too. I remember finding detail pictures for the Koolhoven FK.58 that I would have never thought could exist.

There is one potential problem with old pictures of details like the wheel wells as those appearing in some of the books above: they were generally taken at the factory and as such often represent prototypes Depending on the evolution of the type, small details may have changed over time, Of course a picture of a prototype is better than nothing, more so as the Nomenclatori are generally easily available and these show the parts for production aircraft, often even pointing out differences between construction blocks.

 

 

Now what's the best way to find material on details like wheel wells for a modeller or researcher today ? The books and magazines mentioned above are all useful. Another option is to ask for information on Italian language forums. The Stormo website is very useful as while it's in English it sees the presence of a good number of experts of Italian types, both from Italy and abroad (not all Italians are expert on their types and not all experts on these types are Italian...). Checking with companies may be an option, but as said before material may or not still be available.

 


 

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16 hours ago, 72modeler said:

Marko,

 

There are some excellent walkarounds of Italian fighters on the internet, but be careful with colors on restored airplanes. I vaguely recall a greenish-grey for cockpits and wheelbays for Italian fighters, similar to RLM02 or FS34227, and a bluish-grey for the French fighters. I'm thinking @Giorgio N is your best bet for the Eytie stuff and @BS_w for the French stuff. I have a hardback reference on WW2 Italian colors and markings, and I can check it to see what is there. It's a pair of subjects that have needed a comprehensive reference work for a long time! Wish MMP would do them in their new series of colors and markings hardbacks. I'm not much help, I'm afraid! I think you could also try a website called "Stormo!" which is a very good WW2 Regia Aeronautica reference resource. I wish I had one for French colors and markings I could suggest.

Mike

 

http://www.stormomagazine.com/

 

A bit OT as the OP was asking about pictures rather than colours, but let me say that no, there wasn't a greenish grey colour for wheel wells. Or better, there were a number of paints used for interiors by the various companies and some were green-greys. Others were grey and actually the majority of interiors were in greys.

This was before the "Tavola 10" in 1941 officially requested that all interiors were to be painted in Grigio Azzurro Chiaro 1.

There is then of course the matter of how to define wheel wells... are these interior or exterior parts ? It is known that painters at Macchi treated the wheel wells as exterior parts, so finishing them in the same colour used on the undersurfaces.  Others did differently. Not only an Italian thing, as the colours in the wheel wells of the Spitfire reflected the same issue

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9 hours ago, BS_w said:

for which french airplanes do you need info?

For Leo.45/451, Potez 540/62/65, Potez 63 family, Breguet 693, Bloch 210, Bloch 174/175, Bloch 131, Farman 221/222/223/224, CAO 200, CAO 700, Potez 56 Family, Hanriot 232, Amiot 351/354, Arsenal VG.33 family, Bloch 700, Dewoitine 338, Loire Nieuport 161, Loire Nieuport 401/411

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I don't know of any surviving Potez 63 aircraft, but Jean-Marie Garric from Texas built a Potez 63-11 replica from scratch. I don't know how accurate it is (he used different engines for example) but at a quick glance it looks like he did his homework quite well. Apparently it's based on original blueprints.

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On the Breguet 693 the top of wheel bay is the wing underside. On each side of landing chassis there was fuel tanks, the struts was recessed in inner side of fuel tank. The exterior rubber liner of these tanks was covered with metallic gauze. A written note stipule: inner side of engine cowling and nacelle will be paint same colour as undersurfaces: gris bleu clair
spacer.png
top left: chassis, top right: fuel tanks
bot left: tanks, bot right: nacelle fairings

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4 hours ago, Luka said:

I don't know of any surviving Potez 63 aircraft, but Jean-Marie Garric from Texas built a Potez 63-11 replica from scratch. I don't know how accurate it is (he used different engines for example) but at a quick glance it looks like he did his homework quite well. Apparently it's based on original blueprints.

Long time ago he said me that he got the technical drawings collection from Air & Space Museum, le Bourget, except for the nose.

without this he would not built this airplane
As the Gnome et Rhone 14M engines(or similar) were not available, he used PW 985 engines from  B-18. The PW985 is bigger than GR14 (46in diameter instead 39), the cowling comes from B 18 and are shortened.

Edited by BS_w
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2 hours ago, BS_w said:

Long time ago he said me that he got the technical drawings collection from Air & Space Museum, le Bourget, except for the nose.

without this he would not built this airplane
As the Gnome et Rhone 14M engines(or similar) were not available, he used PW 985 engines from  B-18. The PW985 is bigger than GR14 (46in diameter instead 39), the cowling comes from B 18 and are shortened.

I think you must have meant the Beech 18 used the R-985, not the B-18, as the Bolo used the Wright R-1820 Cyclone, IIRC

Mike.

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15 hours ago, BS_w said:

On the Breguet 693 the top of wheel bay is the wing underside. On each side of landing chassis there was fuel tanks, the struts was recessed in inner side of fuel tank. The exterior rubber liner of these tanks was covered with metallic gauze. A written note stipule: inner side of engine cowling and nacelle will be paint same colour as undersurfaces: gris bleu clair
spacer.png
top left: chassis, top right: fuel tanks
bot left: tanks, bot right: nacelle fairings

Thank you for this, this is exactly what I wanted! Great reference! Any chance you could have something similar for other types?

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There are a number of extracts from Italian tech manuals, the "Manuali per il Montaggio e Regolazione" and the "Catalogo Nomenclatore" mentioned by Giorgio, to be found here:
http://www.cmpr.it/manuali.htm
The pages have been chosen for their interest to modellers and if there are no illustrations of undercarriage bays I think it save to say that there aren't any.

 

Mike

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3 minutes ago, BS_w said:

Oui....

The greatest modelling authority for French subjects! I admire your work and expertise I found on the internet. If anyone could provide rare data, it is you! Any hope for other types I listed?

Edited by MarkoZG
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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you for the photos of LeO 451, I saw them only now. Could you help me with orientation and write a comment about perspective please?

On the left photo I am not sure are we looking at the top or front of the nacelle and for the second I am not sure is it looking at front or back?

What would be your nacelle interior painting suggestion for Leo 451?

Thank you.

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