Cierva C30 Gonzalez Byass Aerial Publicity Tour Mid 1930'S

[petetasker]

I've been struggling with this one for quite some time so this is a bit of a long shot so .... has anyone ever seen a colour illustration, drawing or any other photographs of the Cierva C.30 pictured below? It was leased to the Gonzalez Byass wine company for a UK publicity tour in the mid 1930's. I’m particularly interested in the advertising font colours. Not sure either about the colours on the horizontal tail surfaces - different colour to the fuselage or just the way the lights playing on the surface?

The company are of course still in existence and I have approached them direct but so far without success.

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

[Dave Swindell]

30 minutes ago, petetasker said:

Not sure either about the colours on the horizontal tail surfaces

I'd say those are the easiest for an educated guess - I'd say aluminium (silver) dope, same for the rotor blades

Fuselage stripe, registration, hubcaps and data on aft lower fuselage,  I'd say white, but possibly aluminium (note the fuselage stripe continues under the tailplane)

Title backgrounds - white

Titles appear to be the same colour as the fuselage, the lettering could have been masked and the "background" sprayed over it?

Main fuselage colour, could be any darker colour Blue, Red, Green, Black? A Medium dark blue seems a popular choice for civil Cierva illustrations, but the photo looks a little dark for that.

The aircraft had one owner, Lawrence Eustace Venn from August 1934 to May 1938

[petetasker]

5 hours ago, Dave Swindell said:

I'd say those are the easiest for an educated guess - I'd say aluminium (silver) dope, same for the rotor blades

Fuselage stripe, registration, hubcaps and data on aft lower fuselage,  I'd say white, but possibly aluminium (note the fuselage stripe continues under the tailplane)

Title backgrounds - white

Titles appear to be the same colour as the fuselage, the lettering could have been masked and the "background" sprayed over it?

Main fuselage colour, could be any darker colour Blue, Red, Green, Black? A Medium dark blue seems a popular choice for civil Cierva illustrations, but the photo looks a little dark for that.

The aircraft had one owner, Lawrence Eustace Venn from August 1934 to May 1938

Hi Dave The furthest I've got is I'm pretty sure the overall scheme is standard 'Cierva' blue, striping and reg in white with the 'Jerez' titling just a stencil so white boxing with fuselage blue lettering and silver dope blades. I was hoping for confirmation on the tail lettering but you are probably right that this is just a stencil as well. Theres also a load of interesting lettering under the tailplane. Need some better pictures but I'm beginning to think this is the only one around.

[Dave Swindell]

21 minutes ago, petetasker said:

you are probably right that this is just a stencil as well

I'm guessing, but difficult to prove wrong!

 

22 minutes ago, petetasker said:

Theres also a load of interesting lettering under the tailplane.

Probably permitted weights and/or tyre pressures or similar data

 

24 minutes ago, petetasker said:

Need some better pictures but I'm beginning to think this is the only one around.

The photo you've found is in flight, there's more chance of finding photo's of aircraft on the ground, so you never know, you might get lucky (but only after you've built the model!)

 

Note the forward cockpit has a cover fitted.

[petetasker]

11 minutes ago, Dave Swindell said:

I'm guessing, but difficult to prove wrong!

 

Probably permitted weights and/or tyre pressures or similar data

 

The photo you've found is in flight, there's more chance of finding photo's of aircraft on the ground, so you never know, you might get lucky (but only after you've built the model!)

 

Note the forward cockpit has a cover fitted.

I’ve been putting this one off for months but yes you’re right - finish the model and the perfect references will surface and the finished model will be all wrong - got to laugh!

[John Aero]

I have found another photo of XR on page 215 of the Ord-Hume Autogyro book. It's practically hidden by another C.30A G-ACUI, in a large factory fresh group but the colour looks entirely different.  Opposite UI  is XG and this appears to be Silver with a Red? stripe and letters. UI is in the reverse colours and I'm sure that the reg is not White but Silver as is the lettering. UI's fuselage is the same tone as the stripe on XG and XR is in the same tones. Depending on the film stock Red can appear very dark or mid tone.

 

John

[petetasker]

51 minutes ago, John Aero said:

I have found another photo of XR on page 215 of the Ord-Hume Autogyro book. It's practically hidden by another C.30A G-ACUI, in a large factory fresh group but the colour looks entirely different.  Opposite UI  is XG and this appears to be Silver with a Red? stripe and letters. UI is in the reverse colours and I'm sure that the reg is not White but Silver as is the lettering. UI's fuselage is the same tone as the stripe on XG and XR is in the same tones. Depending on the film stock Red can appear very dark or mid tone.

 

John

Blimey nice one John I missed that despite flicking through the book about eighty thousand times. I'm actually wondering if 'UI' is infact silver and 'XR' is white? I'm also convinced now that the horizontal tailplanes are silver dope. Cierva's sale figures weren't exactly brisk so you would think they would have recorded colour details for us modellers! Thanks again

[John Aero]

An interesting thing about this production batch photo is that there appear to be only two colour scheme options available, a light (Silver?) overall colour with a trim stripe and a darker colour with a light stripe. which I think is Silver. The tail planes and rotors also being Silver. So are there any other clues?

 

You sometimes have to look in odd places, so I dug out my old Players Cigarette cards and I found the picture of a colourised C.30 and this is Blue. Now how reliable will this be?  I study and record pre-war civil schemes and I do know the colours of quite a few of the subjects on the cards. The Luton major was Yellow and Black and the Mosscraft was Cream and Green and Rapide G- ACTT  was Red and Silver. So I think it reasonable to take the C.30 as depicted in mid to dark Blue and Silver as true. Silver was the lightest weight paint and the best UV resistant colour so flying surfaces were seldom any other colour. Trim and fuselage letters were very often in Silver, being favoured by DH and Percival and British Klemm. Depending on the light direction, Silver trim can appear to be White.

 

Cierva were not a heavily funded company so again I think it reasonable to accept a sparse colour brochure as these aircraft were built to sell off the shelf and not necassarily to orders. One exception I can think off would be the C.30 used by AST as their House colours were Black fuselages and Silver wings. Some later Postwar repaints of C.30's had White fuslages.

 

John

 

 

[John Aero]

I'll be coming back on this one. The registration CFI on the C.30P was the prototype Jump start Autogyro and I've found further photos of it in a totally different colour scheme. I've noticed that most of the Cards are based on well known photos in Flight and as I said earlier that the cards depict (of the ones I know) the correct colours for the subject. All I can surmise in this particular case is that a standard company scheme may have been substituted. It just shows you can't be too careful.

 

I have a lot of bound issues of Flight and Aeroplane and incredibly I can only point to one proper mention of colours and that's on a description of the coupe Moth Peridot (Green and White. Everything was taken as Black and White.  Again I will quote the words of A.J. Jackson in a letter to me, "We didn't much bother about colour in those days".  It's only the modellers who did and still do.

 

John.

[petetasker]

10 hours ago, John Aero said:

I'll be coming back on this one. The registration CFI on the C.30P was the prototype Jump start Autogyro and I've found further photos of it in a totally different colour scheme. I've noticed that most of the Cards are based on well known photos in Flight and as I said earlier that the cards depict (of the ones I know) the correct colours for the subject. All I can surmise in this particular case is that a standard company scheme may have been substituted. It just shows you can't be too careful.

 

I have a lot of bound issues of Flight and Aeroplane and incredibly I can only point to one proper mention of colours and that's on a description of the coupe Moth Peridot (Green and White. Everything was taken as Black and White.  Again I will quote the words of A.J. Jackson in a letter to me, "We didn't much bother about colour in those days".  It's only the modellers who did and still do.

 

John.

Hi John Thanks for this. 'CFI' was one of the prototypes but the only photographs I've seen of the real aircraft suggest a cream/light overall colour scheme with possibly red striping and registration. Its interesting Players got the early engine, rotor head and undercarriage configuration right so they presumably based it on something.