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DH 88 Comet G-ACSS colours


rossm

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Another question for my Comet build please...............

 

Is there any evidence for the Beige/Red scheme for "The Burberry" given in the KP kit?

 

My thoughts - it was hired out for each event, after the Paris-Damascus race piloted by Clouston it was flown in the Kings Cup by Ken Walker before being hired to Clouston for the South Africa record - it had an overhaul for this but would it have had a repaint or just a new name/logo? Clouston does not mention anything about colours in his book and Flight only refers to the original scheme for the Paris-Damascus event as Cellon "Morning Mist", no mention of colours for "The Burberry". Photos, being black and white, could be any pale colour with darker lettering.

 

My feeling, unless evidence appears, is that a leased aircraft would not have had a full repaint, especially as Burberry only put up one sixth of the hire charge, and it would have remained in "Morning Mist".

 

Current colours named "Morning Mist" range from Duck Egg Green (Valspar) to Duck Egg Blue (Pantone) - any ideas where the Cellon version sat. I have seen that a Cellon colour chart sold on ebay so there is contemporary documentation if anyone knows where to find it.

 

TIA,

Ross

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Ross, I've long been interested in this aircraft & it's connection with Arthur Clouston, he came from the same area as I live in, & when he did the London-New Zealand flight with Victor Rickets, his New Zealand landing was at Omaka, about 1/1/2 hours from here & the sight of the biennial Classic Fighters air show now. I read once & probably have book marked on an older computer a snippet from a papers past entry for an old Sydney paper that describes them landing in a pale grey aircraft. Between this occasion when she flew as Australian Anniversary & her first incarnation post rebuild, when she flew as  The Orphan on the Istres-Damascus-Paris race in 1937,  later that same year, Clouston & Betty Kirby flew her as The Burberry to Capetown & return to set new records each way. I'm guessing this is old news to you but like you, I don't believe she flew in those colours as the Burberry & was then repainted to pale grey as Aussie Anniversary. I fully intend to do my model as AA in pale grey.

Steve.

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48 minutes ago, stevehnz said:

Ross, I've long been interested in this aircraft & it's connection with Arthur Clouston, he came from the same area as I live in, & when he did the London-New Zealand flight with Victor Rickets, his New Zealand landing was at Omaka, about 1/1/2 hours from here & the sight of the biennial Classic Fighters air show now. I read once & probably have book marked on an older computer a snippet from a papers past entry for an old Sydney paper that describes them landing in a pale grey aircraft. Between this occasion when she flew as Australian Anniversary & her first incarnation post rebuild, when she flew as  The Orphan on the Istres-Damascus-Paris race in 1937,  later that same year, Clouston & Betty Kirby flew her as The Burberry to Capetown & return to set new records each way. I'm guessing this is old news to you but like you, I don't believe she flew in those colours as the Burberry & was then repainted to pale grey as Aussie Anniversary. I fully intend to do my model as AA in pale grey.

Steve.

Thanks for that, unfortunately pale grey could cover "Morning Mist" or "Burberry Taupe" which is what could have been taken from the Burberry palette and could also be called beige. It's not Ivory though, which is the Humbrol reference in the kit instructions. I'm not a fashionista who can distinguish between shades of taupe, beige and grey at a hundred paces but I don't think any of those shades have as much yellow in them as shown on the kit box.

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Hi Rossm,

                        There was an interesting discussion on this in the manufacturers section on AZ round about p37 to p39. I can't think why the whole aircraft would have been repainted and then changed back but................

Quote

The Comet was again re-painted, this time beige, and re-named The Burberry after its new sponsor, Burberry Ltd., makers of the classic gabardine “trench coat.”

This is from an article here: https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/26-march-1938/

I don't know where the information came from or when it was written.

Peter Cooksley describes and draws "Australian Anniversary" as pale blue and dark blue, presumably Cellons Morning Mist. "The Burberry" follows a similar pattern but in beige and dark red - doesn't seem likely but who knows? Or is this another best guess which, in time, becomes fact.

I would have thought Morning Mist was a blue-grey and beige was a warm grey, tending towards brown. Certainly no-one by now will know the real colour unless the Shuttleworth came across it during restoration.

 

Dave     

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Hi Ross @rossm as Dave @Fastcat, has pointed out the colour conundrum has been discussed at length, see the pages refered to, with nowt concrete being found!

 

For what it's worth (which could be nothing) IF the Burberry 'house colours' were used the main colour would have been Beige / Fawn / Taupe,

the Burberry name is "Warm Sand". To get a good idea, just Google "Burberry". The classic Burberry Trenchcoat hasn't changed in style or colour

since the first ones were made in 1879ish, the Maroon is the secondary colour. 

 

This may be worth a look:- https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/the-de-havilland-dh88-comet-burberry-at-gravesend-kent-before-its-picture-id88898882

and also this:- https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/flying-officer-arthur-clouston-disembarks-from-his-aircraft-news-photo/88897609?adppopup=true

note the stripping of the finish colour around the nose, BUT neither answers the original question, however, the Burberry logo on the nose might:-  https://image.slidesharecdn.com/burberrylogo-140806170743-phpapp01/95/burberry-logo-1-638.jpg?cb=1407345178

 

If the Aircraft retained the original colour, to my mind "Morning Mist" would have been a pale grey?

 

Hope this doesn't give you indigestion!

 

Paul

 

 

 

 

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Well-known scratchbuilder Tony Woollett built a 1/36 model of The Burberry about 40 years ago and I saw it personally and it was a pale grey with a slight blue caste with dark blue markings.  Tony usually had the colours correct on his models and 

I certainly believe he was correct in this instance. The beige-coloured Burberry interpretation is just wishful thinking. Someone suggested it on this forum and AZ seem to have taken it to heart. Unlike SBS who had it in the 'correct' colours.

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Thank you @Roger Holden Would you by any chance remember if on Tony Woollett's model the name "The Burberry" was also in blue or could it have been red? I can't find "The Burberry" in the SBS range but "Australia Anniversary" is in pale blue/blue and was, of course, a slightly later incarnation supporting the constant pale blue theory.

 

For the overall colour I've a yearning to use an old pot of Humbrol Authentic HB4 "Duck Egg Blue" as distinct from HB5 "Sky Type S" before it was realised they should be one and the same! I can use the blue registrations from the kit but the name will be red unless I'm absolutely forced to create it as a home made decal in blue.

 

Edit - Bingo! HB4 is now 23 which is the colour recommended by KP for "The Orphan"

Edited by rossm
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1 minute ago, rossm said:

Thank you @Roger Holden Would you by any chance remember if on Tony Woollett's model the name "The Burberry" was also in blue or could it have been red?

 

 

The Burberry name & logo was in the same blue as the other markings.....definitely no red. It's one of the options on the SBS 'Australian Anniversary' decal sheet, (not shown on the box art).   Duck Egg blue is way off. colour wise.  It' should be basically

light grey with the tiniest hint of blue.

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1 minute ago, Roger Holden said:

The Burberry name & logo was in the same blue as the other markings.....definitely no red. It's one of the options on the SBS 'Australian Anniversary' decal sheet, (not shown on the box art).   Duck Egg blue is way off. colour wise.  It' should be basically

light grey with the tiniest hint of blue.

Thank you, I feel a "Wanted" post coming on as an alternative to printing my own 😀

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8 minutes ago, Roger Holden said:

Or maybe SBS will sell you a decal sheet..... 

That's an idea, the email has been sent.

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This is now winding me up, SBS are out of that decal option and my Wanted post hasn't yielded any results so I have a kit that I bought to make one particular option that turns out to be incorrect. Guess I'll have to try scanning, changing the colour and printing my own.

Thank you KP, thank you very b----y much! (apologies to Basil Fawlty for misquoting him)

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Hi Rossm,

                        Whirlybirds did a sheet for The Burberry in the blue scheme. It's WB72028 and Aviation Megastore reputedly have two sets in stock at 6.95 Euros. If they aren't actually available, you can maybe try elsewhere.

With such a contentious scheme, KP should really have covered both schemes. At least the believers in each camp would have been satisfied. Incidentally, it wasn't unusual to have a complete colour change for different sponsorship. When the Smithsonian stripped back Charles Blair's Mustang, they found the grey scheme of Glenn McCarthy and then beneath that, the bright red colours of Paul Mantz. So it did happen. 

Good luck with the decals.

Dave

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4 hours ago, dnl42 said:

Thank you for these, the first link shows very dark, contrasty lettering, the second leads to several shots with pale low contrast lettering. Scratching my head over what film types/filtration would cause this although I would not expect any filtration in the indoor and night shots.

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9 minutes ago, rossm said:

Thank you for these, the first link shows very dark, contrasty lettering, the second leads to several shots with pale low contrast lettering. Scratching my head over what film types/filtration would cause this although I would not expect any filtration in the indoor and night shots.

Orthochromatic film makes blue look lighter than it really is, which explains the 'washed out' look in the second link photos.  The darker lettering (panchromatic film) is the 'correct' appearance.  The grey background colour is unaffected by the film type. 

Which is all further support for the 'grey with blue lettering' scheme.

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1 hour ago, Fastcat said:

Hi Rossm,

                         Did you try Aviation Megastore for the Whirlybirds decals?

 

Dave

Not yet, just drove from Norwich to Devon so not had time. Will get round to it when my brain has recovered,

Thanks for the tip,

Ross

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  • 1 month later...
On 8/21/2019 at 3:13 PM, Fastcat said:

Hi Rossm,

                         Did you try Aviation Megastore for the Whirlybirds decals?

 

Dave

@Fastcat Have looked at Aviation Megastore, shipping is twice the cost of the sheet. Have also emailed Whirlybird but the sheet is not on their current price list.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 10/7/2019 at 5:36 PM, rossm said:

@Fastcat Have looked at Aviation Megastore, shipping is twice the cost of the sheet. Have also emailed Whirlybird but the sheet is not on their current price list.

Got some from direct Whirlybird, just doing the final filling then on to masking.

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This is still agitating me, the Whirlybird decals are quite a dark blue and I think the kit ones are a better shade so I've scanned them and Photoshopped them, including the lettering for "The Burberry" to roughly match Humbrol 109 so I can paint the stripes on the engines and canopy/spine in a colour that matches the lettering. Should have done that first but I've only reclaimed my laser printer from storage this weekend and couldn't print my own until then. FWIW Myriad Pro Bold Condensed font sized at 8.95pt is a good match for the lettering for "The Burberry" and RGB values of 79,130,173 look like a reasonable match for the paint. I'm thinking a paler blue from the photos https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/the-de-havilland-dh-88-comet-burberry-at-gravesend-kent-news-photo/88898882 and https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/the-burberry-a-de-havilland-dh-88-comet-also-called-the-news-photo/88921343 and https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/flying-officer-arthur-clouston-and-betty-kirby-green-leave-news-photo/88897662 The lighting for the shots at Croydon could be playing tricks as it was night time but I hope I'm about right.

 

The colour discussion at https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235010228-kpaz-central-discussion-questions-answers/page/38/ states "The Aeroplane" magazine of December 2017 as a source for the beige chosen for the overall colour in the kit. Can anyone scan that article for me please? I'm still planning to use Tamiya XF-19 but I would use Humbrol 183 if it was still available.

 

I've also ordered the Peewit canopy mask set having failed to achieve a satisfactory result with Maskol.

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