UK Army dhc Beaver late colour scheme

[TOPGUN88]

I was wondering if anyone could help on what colours would be best to use on the uk armys later scheme dhc beavers. I have an airfix kit that I would like to paint in the colours used by the armys historical flight beaver. Also if there are any roundels, registrations above or below the wings of the aircraft and what size these would be.  

[Paul J]

From photos and memory when I used to see them they were black and a dark green just like Gazelles and early Lynx helos.  As for roundels they looked to be about 8 icn  but not sure if they  were one on one wing or to the underside.  There also appeared some kind of upper fuselage antenna that looked like a slightly dome but rectangular or square 'skylight'.

[Giorgio N]

Guess you mean the green/black scheme ? In this case the green used was Oliver Green 298. There aren't too many model paints representing this colour, right off my head I can think of Hataka and Xtracolors

[Aeronut]

Have you seen the Historic Army Aircraft Flight social media? 

Note' if you are going to model the HAAF aircraft they are proud of the mis-matched camouflage on some panels and they consider it a Trade Mark!

 

[speedy]

I work at wallop but if Aeronuts link above isn’t sufficient or you want something measured drop me a pm as I’m in that Hangar.

 

Steve.

[Tom Murphy]

I served with the Intelligence Corps and on my first tour in Northern Ireland I was attached to the RAF at the Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre (Northern Ireland) at RAF Aldergrove.  We were based next door to the AAC's Beaver Flight (later renamed to 1 Flight when they got the Islander AL1).  Their aircraft were our camera ships.  They had vertical and oblique cameras in the fuselage and panoramic cameras in pods under the wings.  The cameras belonged to the RAF and were looked after by techs from RIC(NI).  I left the unit just before the Beavers were replaced by Islanders.

 

During my time there, all of the Beavers had green and black camouflage.  National markings were low-viz blue/red roundels on the fuselage and  wings, no fin flashes.  Serial numbers were black.  The propeller spinners were in various colours, I remember red, yellow and black on different aircraft.  There was no significance to the colours, it was just random, though there was a joke among the ground crew that it was for the benefit of the officer pilots - "You're flying Red today, sir".

 

Sorry, I don't remember any of the aircraft's serial numbers or which ones had which coloured spinners.

 

None of the beavers ever had the green and grey camouflage that was being introduced on helicopters at the time.

Edited September 5, 2019 by Tom Murphy
Correct typo

[HAAFPhot]

Late to the party but...

 

The Beaver AL1 carried the standard dark green and black scheme on all AAC cabs of the time. I have a wad of AL1 pics of you need them.

 

As regards the cameras, as stated above but depending on the role they apparently changed.

 

As yet I have not been able to nail down many images of the camera fit, although I have just found another source who might be able to help.