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Vulcan camouflage question


Adam Poultney

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6491473073_825b58b9cb_c.jpg

A friend raised an interesting question today about Vulcans that neither of us know the answer to. In that front band of green on the right side of the aircraft, the camouflage is an odd shape with 90° corners taken out. Why is this? The feature appears on most if not all Vulcans in the above scheme, regular type D roundels and cream-grey underside (incidentally one of my favourite schemes)

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53 minutes ago, Adam Poultney said:

 

The sharp lines are where the rear part of the fibre glass radome is in two parts. As I understand it the radomes has to be painted certain ways to allow it to work but it seems later with advances that was not needed as the black part and the rear area where painted as the rest. But as for the undersides they where white but the actual antiflash paint was a special type that did have its own character and seems to often have a off white hue too it but white does harmonise well with its surroundings as does silver. 
In the case of 60s camo vulcans the rear part often seems all grey and often a different colour grey so I assume they where painted before fitting 
:)

Edited by robvulcan
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Hola Rob and Adam,

1 hour ago, Adam Poultney said:

The feature appears on most if not all Vulcans in the above scheme, regular type D roundels and cream-grey underside (incidentally one of my favourite schemes)

Yeh, that's right. I also fancy this scheme the most, but without the black-painted part and the low-vis roundels, just as in XM607. Also, there's something about the TFR bulge and the IFR probe that adds a lot to the Vulcans.

Yeh, it does...

Cheers,

 

Unc2

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2 hours ago, Uncle Uncool said:

Hola Rob and Adam,

Yeh, that's right. I also fancy this scheme the most, but without the black-painted part and the low-vis roundels, just as in XM607. Also, there's something about the TFR bulge and the IFR probe that adds a lot to the Vulcans.

Yeh, it does...

Cheers,

 

Unc2

Hi uncle long time no speak I too plan to do that scheme it’s short lived and overlooked. Never seen anyone do a model if it yet. I believe if I remember it was 617 sqn possibly ? 
 

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10 hours ago, robvulcan said:

I believe if I remember it was 617 sqn possibly ? 

Hola Rob, how are you doing, my mate?

Yeh, 617 Sqn, according to the decal sheet instructions on my Aeroclub kit. One thing I was meaning to ask you on this thread yesterday, that I forgot because I was at the threshold of tipsiness; is the surface of the windows on the sides of the canopy flat or does it follow the roundness of the whole thing?

Incidentally; do you know where Melchie is at with respect of his promised starting of a thread on the proper modification of the Aeroclub Vulcan kit? I just had to change my signature in that respect! :lol:

Yeh, I had...

Cheers,

 

Unc2

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15 hours ago, Adam Poultney said:

6491473073_825b58b9cb_c.jpg

In that front band of green on the right side of the aircraft

Funny how everyone reads over the green bit and ignores the square, green hatch next to the roundel :pilot:

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the square bit isn't part of the radome, but an extension to the fuselage structure.

 

My take on this is that the company that made and delivered the radome finished them in the medium sea grey colour all over (apart from the fwd part which was sometimes black).  It appears a slightly different hue to the airframe grey due to the neoprene coating of the radome and thinner coating to allow radar waves to travel through it (this came up in the Victor thread recently).

This results in a colour mismatch on the port side of the nose where the grey radome meets the dark green camo of the airframe.

 

The stb'd side looks alot neater as it is grey meeting grey.

Vulcan-960_640.jpg

 

880px-Avro_Vulcans_at_RAF_Cottesmore_197

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9 hours ago, 71chally said:

 

880px-Avro_Vulcans_at_RAF_Cottesmore_197

😍 Sweet piccy, James!

Super noob enquire, but how do the TFR bulge/IFR probe not interfere with the radar radiation? I infer that the radiation waves are directed below them, as it's not an air-to-air thing but more a down-looking air-to-ground radar, yeh?

Cheers,

 

Unc2

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Yeah, l think a bit of what you say. 

If you look at side view schematics the TFR seems to be sufficiently higher up and further forward as to not interfere with the main H2S scanner path.  

However I won't pretend to fully understand radar principles!

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On 1/17/2020 at 11:54 PM, robvulcan said:

The sharp lines are where the rear part of the fibre glass radome is in two parts. As I understand it the radomes has to be painted certain ways to allow it to work but it seems later with advances that was not needed as the black part and the rear area where painted as the rest. But as for the undersides they where white but the actual antiflash paint was a special type that did have its own character and seems to often have a off white hue too it but white does harmonise well with its surroundings as does silver. 
In the case of 60s camo vulcans the rear part often seems all grey and often a different colour grey so I assume they where painted before fitting 
:)

I knew Rob would know the answer ( Hello mate hope youre well ) and the off white underneath on the early camo Vulcans was the original anti-flash white that all the nuclear delivery a/c were painted in, V Bombers, Buccaneer, Tsr2 etc

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20 hours ago, Uncle Uncool said:

😍 Sweet piccy, James!

Super noob enquire, but how do the TFR bulge/IFR probe not interfere with the radar radiation? I infer that the radiation waves are directed below them, as it's not an air-to-air thing but more a down-looking air-to-ground radar, yeh?

Cheers,

 

Unc2

I could be wrong but the radar was pointing slighty down and, as such, those pertruberances wouldn't really be in the way.

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On 1/17/2020 at 6:35 PM, NorthBayKid said:

The belly was white, just a different colour of white than the roundel.  

If it's anti-flash white, then it's the same color. I thought the same as you because there's some pixel blurring in smaller pictures but you'll realize it's the same if you find a high-res photo and use a color picker on the white of the roundels and the nearest white on the fuselage in a similar lighting position. The reason roundel whites look whiter at first glance is because they are sandwiched between two darker colors. It's the same reason Light Aircraft Grey looks almost white on aircraft with DSG/DG topsides whereas it looks darker next to Barley Grey or Hemp topsides. In short: it's an optical illusion

 

From what I understand, Vulcans (and Victors?) eventually adopted Light Aircraft Grey undersides (before they went wrap-around in the 80s) but from what I can tell this change happened only until around the mid-70s, much later than fighters. Would be great if anyone could back this up or refute with more concrete evidence as this is mere speculation on my part.

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