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Avro Manchester L7246 colour scheme


Adrian Hills

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I'm toying with the idea of doing the very first manifestation of the Manchester L7246. A Spanish (?) chap, Luis Mira, has already done a conversion of the 1/144 Amodel Lanc and placed a lot of lovely info online at : http://www.model34.com/index.php?topic=4060.0

 

This kind of seat of the pants, get the saw and the putty out really appeals to me. I will be using the 1/96 scale Frog kit as the basis of a model that represents this aircraft. I have the kit, some surplus 1/72 Matchbox Flying Fortress wings and a canopy I pull moulded for an earlier model using this kit.  But I have some questions and comments about the colour scheme.

 

In its INITIAL form, ie with 80ft wingspan what colours was it painted ? Snr Mira used dark earth/dark green with black undersides. This aircraft was a prototype but photographs, such as in Warpaint No 103 show that there was no yellow prototype P in a yellow circle. The fuselage roundel has a black ring which is obviously yellow and rendered such in the image due to use of orthochromatic film (as an aside this is shown as black on the Mira model - a minor inaccuracy on an otherwise superb model).  I suggest the underside was also yellow.

 

Technically this should be in the inter-war section as I'm discussing the aircraft on July 25th 1939 - ergo pre WWII, but I think this request is more fitting here.

 

I would like your comments, Please

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@Adrian Hills,  do you not get notifications, as I just posted  on the Lanc GB chat thread.

 

 

as initially flown, L7246, looks to have black undersides, but a low demarcation line, not the higher type used later.

note white serials on wings, as pre-war,  and the bare metal props.   Anotehr shot clearly shows a dark underside, and as i pointed out,  yellow undersides for prototypes came in late 1940 or early 1941?  (I'm thinking of early 1940 pics of the Spitfire III and Typhoon prototype with standard B/W undersides)   

Avro-Manchester-Prototype-L7246-01.jpg?w

 

the 2nd Manchester prototype L7247, does look to have yellow undersides.

zgs3kavbcf301.png

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There's a better photo of L7246 here:

 

https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1346995

 

Note the outer ring of the fuselage roundel.

 

See also this photo, which seems to show the undersides the same tone as the roundel outer: 

 

https://i0.wp.com/www.destinationsjourney.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Avro-Manchester-Mk.I-L7246-in-1942-Farnborough-catapult-trials.jpg?resize=768%2C467&ssl=1

 

Regards


Simon

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10 hours ago, Simon said:

There's a better photo of L7246 here:

 

https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1346995

 

Note the outer ring of the fuselage roundel.

 

See also this photo, which seems to show the undersides the same tone as the roundel outer: 

 

https://i0.wp.com/www.destinationsjourney.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Avro-Manchester-Mk.I-L7246-in-1942-Farnborough-catapult-trials.jpg?resize=768%2C467&ssl=1

 

Regards


Simon

Simon, thank you for those images. Amusingly the 1939 Air Britain photo poses further considerations. From this view it can be seen that the wing roundels are type A with a surround which is no doubt yellow. These roundels look like the image was taken with panchromatic film as the shade of the yellow looks natural. However, the fuselage roundel still has a black looking surround where the yellow should be !

 

I'm also questioning this in the Lancaster group build and have shown Luis Mira's excellent build on http://www.model34.com/index.php?topic=4060.0

 

Snr Mira has painted the surround of the fuselage roundel black - He may be correct !

 

Troy has mentioned that pre-war camouflage was conventional on prototypes and that yellow undersides were adopted during the war. So I go with the position that the underside is probably black.

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I suspect that the AB photos show the original yellow rings to the upper wing roundels to have been painted over with a camouflage colour, in line with changes in instructions, whereas this has not been done yet for the fuselage.

 

The contemporary Halifax first prototype had Night undersides.  The photo in Merrick shows  red/blue roundels with the red lighter than the blue, so not ortho film.  The second prototype first flew in August 1940: a photo flight shows it with Yellow undersides but this is unlikely to have been early in its trial service.

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