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Seac Thunderbolt Colors?


TheFlogger

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hello Gents! First of all, best wihes from Turkey.

 

I have a question regarding SEAC Thunderbolt Mk.IIs. I intended built one bubbletop, flown in Burma. Instructions say dark earth and dark green. But as far as I know those birds were built in USA and used dupont colors. Currently I have Gunze's acyrlic RAF colors. Can I  turn them to matching color with some mixture? 

 

 

Any help is appreciated.

 

Regards.

 

Z.

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3 hours ago, Gooney Fan said:

Hello

 

As far as I know the SEAC Thunderbolts were re-finished in the standard MAP colours by the RAF Maintenance Units before being issued to squadrons.

 

Gooney  Fan

That is correct. The factory painted RAF bound Jugs with Dupont MAP colors, but the long journey by sea to their eventual destinations really took a toll on the finish, so they were re-painted upon reassembly and stripping the original paint due to surface corrosion, using RAF dark green, dark earth, and medium sea grey, in the case of SEAC Thunderbolts, with a few aircraft retaining their original ANA 602  light grey undersurfaces. I took all of this from the excellent Geoff Thomas monograph RAF Thunderbolts, which is probably the very best reference for colors and markings applied to RAF P-47's. Hope this helps!

Mike

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@epozar,

 

Awesome footage! Many great modeling details, too! I have a good friend formerly with British Aerospace  North America, whose uncle flew Hurricanes and Thunderbolts in Burma- said his uncle loved the Jug- wide-track undercart, could take it as well as dish it out, and very roomy cockpit. Wish the film clip had been longer- Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

Mike

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1 hour ago, Nick Nichols said:

So Frog was wrong

It would seem so. :( To be fair, they weren't the only kit/decal producer to slip up here, it seems the correct camo colours took a while to be accepted.

Steve.

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1 hour ago, Giorgio N said:

But, is it just my monitor that is not well calibrated, or is NV-X appearing at 4:09 in green and grey ??? Looks very much like it to me...

No, think you're right.  NB that the serial (only partially visible) is in black whereas the repainted aircraft have it in white.  Similar black/white difference seen on Spitfire XIVs also repainted into SEAC colours., this time from DFS.

 

A few other things of interest:

 

Throughout: Zinc Chromate Yellow less lurid and with a more pronounced greenish tinge than frequently represented.  Not quite the Humbrol 81 Pale Yellow I've used in the past.

0:21 NB the bomb carrier fitted to permit the carriage of British stores on a US pylon.  New to me was how it was recessed into the pylon with only the nose actually visible.

2:18 NB appearance of stainless steel blast tubes on the guns.

4:16 NB very sharp colour demarcation between DE and DG on these repainted aircraft.

6:59 NB walkway marking on starboard flap.  I wasn't aware these were retained/repainted.  NB White wing bands do not continue onto flaps: the RAF (though not normally the FAA) were concerned that adding the white paint to control surfaces might lead to balance problems.

 

A question: what nationality is the Tom Cruise lookalike in the cool shades with the red shoulder tabs and badge (major's crown?) at 5:07?

 

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2 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Very interesting video, thanks for sharing ! But, is it just my monitor that is not well calibrated, or is NV-X appearing at 4:09 in green and grey ??? Looks very much like it to me...

 

I think it's just very weathered DE/DG.  Heavy chalking plus fading can make those shades look more like the Day Fighter Scheme.  It could be the latter but it's really tough to tell, IMHO.  

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That's very much what Geoff Thomas wrote in his book, but John Sheehan (aka Canberra Kid) painted a model of his dad's aircraft in green and grey because that's how his dad said his aircraft was painted.  The film seems to give evidence of some colour change with fading, but sometimes it seems more like patches of grey showing through wear.  However the close up of NV.X mentioned doesn't seem to fit either.

 

Photos of such P-47s postwar show the extreme fading more familiar to views of Ocean Grey than those of Dark Earth, but preconceptions based on more temperate climes can be misleading.  The film certainly shows many aircraft in DG/DE, so there can be no doubt that the standard was widely obeyed.

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26 minutes ago, Seahawk said:

  NB White wing bands do not continue onto flaps: the RAF (though not normally the FAA) were concerned that adding the white paint to control surfaces might lead to balance problems.

 

Good spot, though in this particular case that is not down to balance problems as by definition those only occur on controls which are balanced against flutter - and flutter is only relevant to controls which are free to float around a neutral point.  The P-47 flaps are full power hydraulic drive, have positive uplocks so can't flutter, and given the way they are hinged are in no way balanced during manufacture - there is nothing ahead of a hingeline to balance. 

 

More likely that it was just felt in practical terms inconvenient and unnecessary to add the stripe to the flaps. Note also that the elevators are also unbanded, again in divergence from what you;d expect from the Frog instructions posted above. The elevator is an area which is by nature sensitive to balance for flutter-avoidance reasons, but on this occasion it's not like adding a band in the field, thus disturbing a carefully factory-balanced unit. The whole of the elevator has been repainted in new colours anyway, so will have been re-balanced, and they could have done that with or without the white band.

 

 

Edited by Work In Progress
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This would only be true for aircraft arriving in theatre after the requirement for the stripes.  At the time of their introduction every aircraft in theatre would require them, and none of them would be wanted on the control surfaces.  So whether this was intentional or not, it would be likely that the accepted standard would become no stripes on the control surfaces.  Which would be safer, after all.

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50 minutes ago, Seahawk said:

A question: what nationality is the Tom Cruise lookalike in the cool shades with the red shoulder tabs and badge (major's crown?) at 5:07?

 

He's South African. The sunglasses are RAF issue Mk.VIII ones.

Edited by Smithy
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Wonderful little film. Interesting to see close ups of the variety of nationalities of the pilots, US,Rhodesia , South African ( the one with red shoulder flashes??) All the more interesting for me as my late father in law serviced Thunderbolts in Burma late 44 to '45 as a servicing commando

3 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Very interesting video, thanks for sharing ! But, is it just my monitor that is not well calibrated, or is NV-X appearing at 4:09 in green and grey ??? Looks very much like it to me...

I thought that too serial KJ231 in white

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It may just be that what I see is weathered Dark Earth over the original US dark grey, however the more I look at the video the more I see grey being used.

All other aircraft show colours that to me iare well within the Dark Earth range, weathered or not. So yes, rules were sure widely obeyed (and I would not expect less). However the fact that all other aircraft show Dark Earth makes the colour on NV-X even more suspect... of course it may be possible that the film suffered from different light conditions at different times, but still, I see grey more than brown on that aircraft.

 

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  • 3 months later...

My dad, who flew with 79 Sqn then 34 Sqn always said the Thunderbolts he flew in Burma were Grey and Green and the ones he flew in Egypt and India were brown and green and very tatty, I'm sure there will have been a mix of Grey and Green and Brown and Green as indicated in the film and he had just miss remembered, but the fact he was adamant regards the Grey and Green suggests to me that some of them were camouflaged as such.  A number of the aircraft in the film are in his log book, which is nice, now if only a colour film of 34 Sqn 1945 would turn up!   

 

John  

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Viewing this forum on my mobile phone and I misread the title as SeaThunderbolt. My first thought was wow they would need to reinforce the landing wires on the carriers flight deck and add some more horepower to the catapults🙄

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P-47Ds of the 318th FG USAAF were successfully catapulted off the Casablanca class CVEs Manila Bay and Natoma Bay in June 1944 to land on the island of  Saipan in the Marianas.

 

I don’t think any were ever “hooked” to allow them to land on a carrier.

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