Kenttavihrea or Finnish Olive Green

[Antti_K]

Hello all,

 

I compared my NCS readings against FS595. Finnish dark green is closest to FS 34082. The fin of captain Hans Wind's Buffalo is today on display at Finnish Aviation Museum at Vantaa. Only problem is that the exhibition hall is purely lit so colour comparisons can be rather challenging. However I can ask if they allow me to take it outside for a closer look.

 

This well known photo of captain Wind was probably shot using Agfa film. All colours are badly distorted. His skin looks very pale (almost blueish) and the sky is "ink blue". Also the number 9 on the rudder looks dirty yellow when it should be dark orange. The camouflage green(s) aren't even close to those colour observations I've made.

 

FS 34102 is too greenish as is FS 34096 also.

 

Mike is right about the rudder; it is clearly deflected to port. It is possble that Sun rays are parallel to the surface. But is this the explanation for a different shade?

 

Cheers,

Antti

[72modeler]

It's a mystery, to be sure! Back in the 70-80's, using the best color photos I could find and a Pactra paint mixing  chart done by IPMS Tidewater,which was distributed by Pactra and was pretty highly regarded at the time, I mixed Finnish Olive Green, which I thought looked pretty close. I had no FS595a chart to compare it to back then,  but now that I have the chart, it is almost an exact match for FS34159. I also have a bottle of Aeromaster enamel labeled Finnish Olive Green, stock number 9081, and it is a very close match to  FS34127. The Aeromaster paint has a more brownish cast than my mix. I know FS34096 is given as a match on a lot of color charts and paint guides, but I think it is too dark and too green, but I am NO authority on Finnish colors, nor do I know what color photos available give a true representation, what with all the colorizing and digital manipulations that can be done. Looking at museum aircraft and preserved aircraft parts can't be very exact either, considering that even artifacts that have been kept inside are still 80 years old and have to have drifted from their original appearance. Knowing this doesn't take us any further towards answering the original poster's query, I offer my two cent's worth. (Insert your country's currency here!)

Mike

 

And no, I @Antti_K, I did not think to record the formula at the time! 😭

[Mike Starmer]

The bright colour on the Buffalo rudder is due to deflection and catching more light.  The black tail cone is normal.  All the pictures of Buffalos in my Finnish Air Force Camouflage and Markings book show the same feature as do Moranes.   This is probably as a result of the rudders being painted before attaching to the fuselage.  The green given in this book too is close to FS.34096,  although the several colour photographs all differ, they look nothing like that FS green.  It looks to dark and green compared to the images.  These all show a distinct yellow or olive tinge more akin to FS.34259 but that seems too bright.  In B/W images the contrast between green and black is quite high but 34096 doesn't do that.  For what is is worth I would use Humbrol 159 or combine 226 and 155 on a model.   One point worth mentioning, in a army camouflage information and assessment document I have, it is pointed out that on this planet there are very few areas, with one exception, where a blue-green colour would be effective.  Colours for overland use should all be yellow-greens.  The exception being its use by for over-water use in semi- and tropical areas.  Humbrols 30, 76, 88, 149, 223 and 224 are all blue-greens.  If you take a spot of those and add some white you can see the blue immediately.

[JackG]

Another colour image with the rudder:

 

[72modeler]

I am sooooo confused! Adding to my puzzlement is the fact that none of the several color chips of FS34096 on the internet, the alleged best match for Finnish olive green look alike! I guess I will have to wait until the B239 currently on display in Finland comes home to the Naval Air Museum at Pensacola to see what the colors are.

Mike

[Aardvark]

On 11/20/2019 at 11:54 PM, Antti_K said:

I talked to the museum staff during the Buffalo restoration and the guys there said that all the colours changed noticeably week after week as the aircraft dried.

Antti, I not understand, 

Pashalok written:

"In 1998, he was pulled out of the lake, in excellent condition, and then a turbulent story began.  Far from legal means, the aircraft  left the territory of Russia, after which it went from Finland to the USA.  It was supposed that it would be restored there and returned to the Finns, but there it was.  It turned out that the Americans want to keep the plane to themselves, because this is the only Buffalo that has survived to this day.  It was planned that the aircraft will replenish the US Naval Aviation Museum, but by 2008 it became clear that it would not be mastered.  Therefore, the plane returned to Finland again, and it was left as it is."

https://yuripasholok.livejournal.com/12360112.html#comments

When did the color change?  After all, he did not immediately get to the museum from the lake?  He was in Russia for some time, probably a long time, because he needed to make illegal documents*  for smuggling through customs, after which he ended up in Finland, then in the USA and then back to Finland.

 

As far as I can see, the colors at the Buffalo Museum match very well with the color photos of the war period.

 

______________

* - As the user LJ Vikond65

https://vikond65.livejournal.com/

known as Vyacheslav Kondratiev (former editor "Aviamaster" magazine) writes in the comments:

"I wonder how much Oleg Leiko has gained on this?  And how much did he have to unfasten to cover up the smuggling criminal case?"

 

B.R.

Serge

 

[AaCee26]

4 hours ago, Aardvark said:

"In 1998, he was pulled out of the lake, in excellent condition, and then a turbulent story began.  Far from legal means, the aircraft  left the territory of Russia, after which it went from Finland to the USA.  It was supposed that it would be restored there and returned to the Finns, but there it was.  It turned out that the Americans want to keep the plane to themselves, because this is the only Buffalo that has survived to this day.  It was planned that the aircraft will replenish the US Naval Aviation Museum, but by 2008 it became clear that it would not be mastered.  Therefore, the plane returned to Finland again, and it was left as it is."

Hi Serge and all,

 

BW-372 didn't visit Finland befor it went to Pensacola. In fact it was transferred from Karelia to Moscow and flown from there to Dublin, Ireland befor it was moved to the States.

 

About the green colour very old recipe for colour mix to get the Finnish AF WW2 dark green was 3 parts Humbrol dark green 30 mixed with one part Humbrol 29 Dark Earth. I believe this was mixed using the Hurricane as a sample.

 

Cheers,

 

AaCee

Edited December 8, 2019 by AaCee26
Typo

[Aardvark]

12 minutes ago, AaCee26 said:

BW-372 didnät visit Finland befor it went to Pensacola. In fact it was transferred from Karelia to Moscow and flown from there to Dublin, Ireland befor it was moved to the States.

Well, Pashalok is a very good tank expert who is sponsored by the "World of Tanks" and works in the archives (!), but airplanes aren't exactly his.

🤗

 Nevertheless, my question remains: "How can Finnish museum specialist  claim that the shades of paint changed before their eyes when Buffalo got to them after so much time?"

As I know Finland air, this not a Donbass air, it does not corrode airplanes,😁 it is very clean and environmentally friendly!

 

 Something is wrong here.

 

B.R.

Serge

[Troy Smith]

1 hour ago, Aardvark said:

"How can Finnish museum specialist  claim that the shades of paint changed before their eyes when Buffalo got to them after so much time?"

On 20/11/2019 at 20:54, Antti_K said:

I talked to the museum staff during the Buffalo restoration and the guys there said that all the colours changed noticeably week after week as the aircraft dried.

 

As the airframe dried out, (after being very wet..) the appearance of the colours changed.

[Aardvark]

2 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

As the airframe dried out, (after being very wet..) the appearance of the colours changed.

You see, he didn’t get to Buffalo from Russia in one day?  For the time when he got to Buffalo, he had to dry!  Because humidity combined with air, this is additional corrosion!  And he couldn’t be transported across the border in a water tank, because customs would simply not let him in.

I can be mistaken, but as far as I know, what is lifted from the bottom of the sea is first stored in water, then drained and anti-corrosion treatment is carried out, because without corrosion treatment many parts on land are quickly destroyed.

Of course it still depends on the salinity of the water, in the lakes it is song in the ocean or the sea it is more salty.

If the paint in Buffalo was wet and changed color, then this process should have started immediately after the rise in Karelia, it will continue in Moscow, then in Ireland, then in Buffalo it has completely dried up (?) And at the same time returning to Finland it turned out to be almost like  those colors that were on color photos of the war period .....

Is there any discrepancy here?

Moreover, according to the recollections of eyewitnesses he was transported by helicopter, where did the humidity come from?

 

"The story is old but interesting.  I remember watching TV reporting back in the distant 98th on local news about a Finnish American-made Brewster Buffalo aircraft with tail number BW-372, which was picked up from a lake in the Medvezhyegorsk district, and a few days later I was able to see it on a field  airfield near my city, where he was delivered by helicopter.  I was struck by the excellent preservation: the paint on the fuselage, the devices were in excellent condition, according to the policeman guarding the fighter, they dismantled the engine, which simply shone inside."

Next:

"The plane sank in Greater Kaliyarvi at a 15-meter depth in a depression in the middle of the lake.  The underwater environment was ideal for maintaining the machine.  A 56-year-old fighter lying on the bottom of the lake completely plunged into the sludge, this slowed down the corrosion process, but became an obstacle when climbing, making it difficult to separate from the bottom."

Lift and transportation

photo:

Only I see that the color has not changed radically, off course with correction on mud?

 

B.R.

Serge

 

P.S.

Photo & text from https://www.yaplakal.com/forum2/topic894304.html

Many interesting  on Russian outside story.

Edited December 8, 2019 by Aardvark

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

On 11/19/2019 at 8:57 PM, Weatherman said:

Hello to all chaps,

 

Opening this thread in order to discuss around the so called "Kenttavihrea" colour used by the Finnish Air Force during WWII (but as well until last years).  Searching through the internet in various sites, including color photographs of that era, modelling instructions and of course published stuff, someone can find quite large variety of that Finnish green used on almost all aircraft. The matter is, what is the closest hue of that green to be used on a model. The most common FS reference for this colour is the 34096, refered as the ideal one in Special Hobby's colour instructions for Finnish subjects of WWII:

 

This colour seems quite dull and mostly gray, looking at it on its own. Let us now see what the colour was like on the real airplane (photos are from the Finnish Military Archive). Firstly, we have a great shot of a Brewster Buffalo with a speciality between fuselage and rudder green and a (quite backlit) photograph of a Fokker:

 

      

 

What derives from the colour analysis of the above photos, picking up the green colour in photoshop we have the below hues:

 

Fokker wing was very difficult to pick up, because the was not a clear point to chose the colour from.

 

First impressions:

 

1) Looks like that Finns (as most of the air forces of the world) used slightly virabale hues of the same colour on their aircraft, or this is a result of newly painted parts and older ones that came through weathering, fading etc.

2) Can we accept FS34096 as the right colour code for Kenttavihrea? If yes, then it seems to be most closer to the Buffalo fuselage, which indeed seems a bit grayish.

3) From diferrent colour photographs of several kinds of airplanes of the Finnish Air Force, the human eye translates the information for a more vivid and saturated green, rather than the above gray-green colour. Closer to the rudder one. This maybe happens due to the contrast with the black colours that lays just next to the green and occasionally with the yellow coloured parts.

 

<SNIP>

 

Thank you for your time. Looking forward to read your answers.

 

Themis

 

 

You can't digitally sample a photograph and expect to land anywhere close to a real reference. It just doesn't work. You will have already found huge variances in the colour of pixels on a single surface in the photograph, then subjectively chosen the one you like best and that's before we even begin on the absolutely gigantic differences in colour we get back from a painted surface depending on the precise temperature of the light source and the angles between light source, observed painted surface and viewer position.

 

I don't mean to be negative but what you're doing isn't a methodology - it's a waste of time with lots of words to try to make it sound convincing. The only way to do it without huge assumptions, simplifications and selective dismissal of other present colour evidence from the same photographs is to physically go to the artifact and match or measure it directly. Even then, a Buffalo that has lived under water for decades will be a different colour compared to a Buffalo recently painted.

[72modeler]

@Aardvark- thank you so much for posting the photos of the recovery!

 

It never ceases to amaze me that almost every time a WW2  aircraft has been recovered from a lake, the tires are still inflated! (The Lake Michigan airframes and the Lady be Good are examples that come to mind, although she was in the desert.)

Not wanting to get involved in all of the politics about where she will end up, and whether or not she will be restored or just displayed as recovered, or even whether or not she will remain in her current Finnish colors and markings or revert back to her original USN finish, I'm just tickled to death that the olive green sections in the photos of her on display in Finland are almost an exact match to the enamel I mixed years ago!

Mike

 

Now, if the USN and the aircraft recovery team can just quit their insane infighting and get on with recovery and restoration of one of the remaining TBD's that have been discovered before it is too late, the vintage aviation community would be a lot better place! (Where's the late Paul Allen when we really need him?)

 

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by 72modeler
corrected spelling

[Antti_K]

Hello all,

 

great photos Serge! Thank you for sharing🙂 I've never seen such a collection before. I remember the museum staff saying that especially those yellow markings changed hue during the time this Buffalo was at the museum workshop.

 

Wasn't there a problem with the funding? And that lead to a situation where the ownership of the Buffalo became "unclear"? Let's hope that a solution can be found and this Buffalo goes where it should (whether that be in Finland, Russia or USA).

 

I'm with Jamie here; if there are surviving artifacts, use them for colour matching. It has been mentioned here a couple of times already that those remaining bits and pieces are now 80 years old. That's true of course. But so are those colour photos as well. And you can't get the truth out of old photos. No matter how much and for how long you play with them using software intended for digital photo enhancing. Please, don't take me wrong: good colour photos save the day for a modeller ever so often. They point us to the right direction and toward further study. For example if a certain panel or marking was painted with red or green. So I'm not against old colour photos and their usage in model building; quite the opposite. When accuracy is required then other means are needed.

 

Cheers,

Antti

 

[Aardvark]

12 hours ago, Antti_K said:

Wasn't there a problem with the funding? And that lead to a situation where the ownership of the Buffalo became "unclear"?

Because on modern Russian law all found in earth & water military objects it's military trophy and his owner MoD Russia.In the nineties there was a mess with the legislation, more details could be read in Russian from the link that I gave.  But since not everyone can use Google translator, I’ll probably give excerpts here.

 

"As searched for "Brewster".

 In 1992, Heimo Lumpy, an as-fighter flying on a Brewster, learned that the American National Maritime Aviation Museum would like to receive a Brewster aircraft in its collection.  Lumpy recalled two planes that drowned slightly damaged in the Soviet Union: one in the sea, the other in the lake.  Together with his friend Vic Zaragon and daughter Marya Lampi, he decided to create a team to try to find and remove one of these fighters from Russia.  They managed to find a sponsor - American Marvin Cottman.  He was the head of Turbines Ltd, he had good connections with the US Navy and the museum.  Cottman, in turn, entrusted the management of search operations to his subordinate Gary Williard.

At first, it was decided to search for the BW-388 aircraft in the Gulf of Finland by the pilot Jouko Lill, as the place of the fall into the water was known from the words of the diver Timo Nyman.  However, legally, all ships and aircraft sunk in the Gulf of Finland belonged to the Baltic Memory association, so it was very difficult to take out the Brewster if it was discovered.

At this time, St. Petersburg search engine Vladimir Prytkov from the organization Petro-Avia joined Williard and Lampi.  To avoid any problems, Kottman decided to buy the plane from the rightful owner, and only after that transfer it to the museum in Pensacola.  In 1994, Prytkov and Kottman decided among themselves all financial and organizational issues, after which it was decided to proceed with the search for an aircraft in Karelia.  Over the next couple of years, Prytkov and Lumpy worked in the archive, trying to figure out the exact place where the Brewster BW-372 fell.  After that, searches were conducted at the site of the alleged crash.

In 1996, Williard announced to Cottman that he would continue the project without Cottman.  And their relationship broke.  However, Cottman still received the fax, according to which Williard informed Cottman that if the plane was found, he would return the money spent during the search, Cottman, and reimburse the cost of tools and other accessories.

In June 1998, a diver Timo Nyuman finally discovered a fighter lying at the bottom of Greater Kaliarvi. At the end of July, Williard arrived in Petersburg and showed Prytkov a video of underwater filming made by Timo Nyuman.  Nyuman himself arrived in Petersburg along with lawyer Tero Erme.  Williard said that in Moscow he has acquaintances in the Aviazapchasti association, which can help in obtaining permits for the raising and removal of aircraft.  But they did not receive real help, but rather secured themselves huge problems in the future.  The rise began in August, partly for the money received by Williard from the American Charles Hein, partly due to Prytkov.  The team included divers from Sosnovy Bor - members of the club named Katran.  One of the divers was an engineer and made the necessary calculations for the reliability of the aircraft.

As a result, a mixed US-Finno-Russian group of 17 people arrived in Kalijärvi.  The language barrier and misunderstanding became real problems during the work.  In addition, Nyuman thought that he was still working for Cottman, and Willard was just an intermediary.  Prytkov asked Nyuman to take him ashore and show the place where the plane sank.  At the same time, Prytkov took an ax with him.  No knows what flashed in Nyuman’s head, but he decided to get out of harm's way, because according to the ancient Finnish tradition he completely did not trust the Russians.  He transmitted information about the aircraft through Termo Erme, and drove home, dropping into the village of Padany along the way and informing the local precinct about a suspicious Russian with an ax.  The district police officer and the head of the local village council went to the lake, but did not find anything suspicious, however, information about the ongoing work on raising the aircraft began to spread rapidly.

The plane sank in Greater Kaliyarvi at a 15-meter depth in a depression in the middle of the lake.  The underwater environment was ideal for maintaining the machine.  A 56-year-old fighter lying on the bottom of the lake completely plunged into the sludge, this slowed down the corrosion process, but became an obstacle when climbing, making it difficult to separate from the bottom.  It was dark in the water and the movement in the mud porridge was very difficult for divers, it took a lot of strength.  Working conditions were like hell, the only difference was that at the bottom of the lake it was very cold.

Russian divers worked in 8-degree water, rising to the surface only when they were blue from the cold.  Tina was first dug up with snow shovels, and then the plane was cleaned with a strong stream of water. Divers worked during the day.  At night, when they had rest, the dirt settled on the plane and in the morning they had to clean it with shovels again.  Finally, divers managed to get wide lifting straps under the plane.  These works took about two weeks.

Gary Williard did not understand in what environment the work was going on and asked a friend-diver from Florida to rent an airplane for an underwater video camera.  This friend also did not foresee the circumstances of the matter, the divers returned from the lake completely calm, and he did not understand the language they speak.  Billiard's friend, a Florida diver, was terribly shocked when he found himself in a frosty, dark jelly of mud and mud.  Half-dead he came to the surface of the lake with the words:

"Cold, dark and terrible!".

At the same time, Prytkov tried to resolve legal issues, turned to the mayor of Segezha, but he refused to take any responsibility on this issue.
 Then Prytkov turned to Petrozavodsk, where they seem to have given the green light.

The aircraft began to rise on August 16, 1998.  Tractor tires were brought under the plane and inflated.  The plane moved two meters from the surface, towards the west coast.  A winch has already been installed there.  After 56 years, the fighter was again on solid ground. When the plane was on shore, events began to develop not as planned by Williard and Prytkov.  By the way, at the time of the rise, the cost of the aircraft was, according to various estimates, from 70 to 150 thousand dollars, but in the USA a plane of this type restored to a flying state would cost 2.5-3 million dollars.  That kind of money
 attracted big problems, and they appeared.

The amateurs

from the “Aviazapchast(AirParts)” (which had no idea about the peculiarities of restoring American planes), which Williard had recklessly contacted earlier, became interested in the plane. Marvin Kottman also came to Karelia, who still wanted to buy the plane from its rightful owner.  It smelled of big money and the government of Karelia also got into the game.  Prytkov and Williard were told that the plane belongs to the state.  The search engines were simply removed - Prytkov was tied up for illegal possession of weapons and ammunition and kept for several days behind bars, Williard hastened to get out on his own.  The team of Prytkov, realizing that it smells like kerosene, drowned the engine from an airplane, which, however, was lifted from the lake a few days later.

Kottman offered the Government of Karelia $ 250,000 per plane, but while the issue was being resolved, the guys from the "Aviazapchast" seriously decided to american, who decided to brazenly appropriate the results of someone else's work.  Kottman, frightened by the "Russian mafia", also hastened to leave the country.  As a result, the aircraft went to the "Aviazapchast" association, but they didn’t know what to do with it later - there was no documentation for the aircraft, work required equipment in an inch scale and several years of painstaking work.

Since they do not like investing in prospects, "Aviazapchast"

recognized the restoration of the fighter impossible and was quickly sold to a private collector in Ireland.  By the way, part of the proceeds of the agreement with the Government of Karelia was transferred to the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Social Protection for bicycle seats and special vehicles for veterans;  to perpetuate the memory of the dead, the completion of the memorial "Cross of Sorrow" and the improvement of the burial places of soldiers who died during the war.

While the question was being decided, who did own the aircraft, conservation work was not carried out, in the end it turned out that it was not possible to restore it to a flying state.  In 2004, Brewster BW-372 from Ireland migrated to the museum in Pensacola, and in 2008 ended up at the Jyväskelä air museum in Finland, to which it formally belonged.

Gary Williard wrote the book "Great Buffalo Hunt", Marya Lumpy and Vladimir Prytkov also published "Kadonneen Brewsterin metsästys" and removed the   documentary

 film "Brewster - the pearl of the sky" ("Brewster - taivaan helmi").
 At the moment, "Brewster Buffalo BW-372" - the only surviving fighter of this type in the world."

from  comment to this text:

"...and then Muscovites in Petrozavodsk opened an entertainment center with a country base for this money"

 

B.R.

Serge

 

P.S.

In the 1990s,

from Russia was

about 50 (or even 100 I don’t remember, I’ll find a placard) planes of the 2WW period were taken out.  Much if not everything was exported according to illegal and criminal schemes.