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1/48 Spitfire 'off white' codes


WV908

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Hi all,

  I'm not sure if this is entirely a post war thing, but most Spitfires on the flying circuit today wear squadron codes that are of an off-white (not sky and not grey) colour. I'm really struggling to find anything that will suit decal-wise in 1/48. I bought a set of Xtradecal X48023 which looked about right on the website, but turned up beige on arrival.

 

Thanks in anticipation,

  WV908

Edited by WV908
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4 hours ago, WV908 said:

but most Spitfires on the flying circuit today wear squadron codes that are of an off-white

An example or example would help,  but I suspect you will finds the codes are actually either Medium Sea Grey or Sky, but may appear off white.   

The ones in the BoB movie I think are off white though.

 

5 hours ago, WV908 said:

I bought a set of Xtradecal X48023 which looked about right on the website, but turned up beige on arrival.

This maybe an illusion caused by the colour of the backing sheet,  pale blue, as Sky is in colour terms a yellow-green.   One applied to a model may look a lot better.   There are lots of poor representations of Sky out there on decals sheets as well though.

 

Note. RAF codes don't have a 'font' so a sheet like this a average compromise, careful study of the vagaries of RAF codes show a subject with as many variables and quirks as Luftwaffe camouflage...

Look at the codes here carefully, like the 'JX' on S, I and B... compare "font" position, spacing, height. 

Hawker-Hurricane-IIc-RAF-1-Squadron-JXY-

 

 

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Thanks Troy - I'm hoping that the blue backing is indeed compounding the problem. 

 

Examples of Spitfires I am looking at are EP120 and MH434 - their codes are neither the usual darker sky nor grey and when compared to the roundels, are only just off-white. It's a confusing problem which was brought on by my plan to model MV293 in it's MV268 guise - in some photos the codes look sky, in others they look this off-white.

 

Cheers,

  WV908

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1 hour ago, WV908 said:

 in it's MV268 guise

Has any one ever seen a wartime of MV268 showing JEJ ???? Suspect the correct serial number is MV257. There was no requirement for the use of 'Sky' paint on the continent other than for codes.....as such it was not sent over...thus the use of 'White' instead.

John

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5 hours ago, WV908 said:

Examples of Spitfires I am looking at are EP120 and MH434 - their codes are neither the usual darker sky nor grey

I hope you're talking about decal sheets. 

y4mEqmaiSdxdi-I-6seUiE6j6DqgVnXsNGCRUF1M

 

 

y4m61hn1BIhHPoHB5dcgFV3ZWjwldZu0TMuQKr7y

 

 

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51 minutes ago, alt-92 said:

I hope you're talking about decal sheets. 

y4mEqmaiSdxdi-I-6seUiE6j6DqgVnXsNGCRUF1M

 

 

y4m61hn1BIhHPoHB5dcgFV3ZWjwldZu0TMuQKr7y

 

 

I'm talking about how the aircraft can appear in photos and how they compare to decal sheets :) - in those two it's clearly sky - in other photos of the same aircraft the codes look white-ish. MV293 is even more confusing than these two - regardless, neither pair of codes in these photos are as dark as any decal sheet I can find that calls it's codes 'sky' unfortunately.

 

Cheers,

  WV908

Edited by WV908
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I have a pic I took last July @ Duxford for MV293 and it's definitely Sky.

Can't post it right now.
The two more suspect codes are G-AIST as P7308 - that is definitely not in Sky but very light grey (lighter than MSG) - and G-LFVC as JG891 in Desert/Malta colours having white codes.

 

Edited by alt-92
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15 hours ago, WV908 said:

most Spitfires on the flying circuit today wear squadron codes that are of an off-white (not sky and not grey) colour.

Most? No, not at all if you go and inspect them closely in person. Photography can be misleading. The level of historical accuracy achieved is vastly greater than it was in the '70s and '80s.

 

There are a few, mind you, which were evidently done on the basis that historical accuracy was not particularly important to a particular owner at the time the aircraft was last painted.

 

I would not necessarily say that for P7308 in particular without further insight into the individual case, It is beautifully done in general but I agree that the squadron codes are a lot lighter than the usual range of Medium Sea Grey. What I don;t know offhand is whether the painter has any reasonable evidence of that aircraft being atypical at the date of the scheme being reproduced. This does happen.

 

For MH343, it's some years since I was hanging around her but those squadron codes go on and off a lot for filming purposes and because of that at one point at least they were very sensibly not being painted on but applied with laser-cut vinyl, in which case you're working with whatever colours are in the vinyl catalogue.

Edited by Work In Progress
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Managed to get somewhere to post the pictures.

The subject of the topic:

y4mzeiIN3Z25jj9VIdk3pgwnXHay8WQ4g5vjrPi1

 

P7308 / XR-D

y4mUmbtH5vo49udawtqaxGdPt_EbR0s94kgAYVWs

Interestingly, the 1:48 Revell Mk.II boxing has the markings for this (supposedly august 1941), but the paint scheme is DFS.
 

G-LFVC / JG891 - this is definitely white.

y4m3Wb0Iv_vnnbzWAXO24ZervYXELV_f6fZDXzly

I'd like to see her fitted with the Trop Vokes again, you can see the half-detached intake here.

 

 

N3200

y4mpTFrirsxkAMlrtoBVh2hwINYelN4GZyPce1qo

 

Almost all Spits, Hurris and others in DE/DG colours have the MSG codes. 

Edited by alt-92
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Thanks for the replies all - MV268 (MV293) is the really funny one here as as with most in-flight photos, the codes look to be sky. I photographed her on the ground at Duxford last Thursday (will upload the photo when I'm home later) and I could swear the codes are white. Equally when viewing MH434 relatively up close on the same visit, her codes appeared grey and did not match the sky band or the white of the D-Day stripes. 

 

Cheers,

  WV908

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4 hours ago, WV908 said:

Equally when viewing MH434 relatively up close on the same visit, her codes appeared grey and did not match the sky band or the white of the D-Day stripes.

 

4 hours ago, Work In Progress said:

Even during WW2 - especially during WW2 - Sky squadron codes applied at MU or unit level rarely matched factory-applied Sky rear bands exactly.

Indeed as, I found out here

woodhouse37-1.jpg&key=abc18872c22dfe08e0

  

On 14/05/2011 at 03:26, Troy Smith said:

having been doing some Tempest research, I finally noticed this interesting detail, that Tempest EJ693, which is an unrestored fuselage, has it's squadron codes in medium sea grey, instead of the usual sky.

 

  

On 14/05/2011 at 16:30, Chris Thomas said:

Oh No they are not! I have had the chance to examine this relic at close quarters several times over the last 20 years and I can assure you that the code letters are Sky. Please don't subject us to another 'Ive seen this unusual colour in a copy of someone-else's-photo-taken-in-unknown-lighting-on-umknown-film-scanned-in-an-unknown-way-and-displayed-on-my-monitor-etc thread.

CT

 

  

On 14/05/2011 at 20:49, Chris Thomas said:

The Sky band would have been factory applied and the unit codes would have been applied by the unit (or its servicing echelon), at Eindhoven in this case. That could be a reason for the difference as well as the years of fading and grime that are evident.

EJ693 joined 486 Sqn at the beginning of Sept 44, when the unit was still with ADGB, ie. before it joined 2ndTAF. It was a time when the reduction of AEAF stripes to fuselage undersides only had recently been ordered. These stripes were probably applied to EJ693 by 3501 SU which was ADGB's equivalent to the 2nd TAFs GSUs. These units were, among other thing, tasked with preparing aircraft for operational service and maintaining a pool ready for issue.

The interesting thing is that the stripes on EJ693 were painted on (ie. not distemper like the original stripes). This may have been so because the stripes were seen as more permanent than the originals or that paint created less drag than distemper - which had found to be undesirable during the campaign against the V-1s.

 

  

On 14/05/2011 at 20:01, Edgar said:

Tail bands were painted by the factory, as was the serial no. Squadron codes were painted by the Squadron, and, provided that they complied with set dimensions, could be (almost) any design, which is why talking about "RAF fonts" is a complete waste of time. By the time EJ693 was built, Hawker were using the same synthetic paints that Supermarine had started in 1942, but there's no guarantee that the Squadron artist was using the same paint; he could, quite easily, have still been using the original cellulose, which was also smooth (Sky Type "S," remember.) The stripes could have been applied by the Squadron, or even at an M.U., if the aircraft was not delivered direct to the Squadron.

Edgar

 

HTH

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3 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

 

Indeed as, I found out here

woodhouse37-1.jpg&key=abc18872c22dfe08e0

  

 

  

 

  

 

  

 

HTH

Thanks for the info and photo Troy. Not sure if you've seen it but you have a PM from me :)

 

Cheers,

  WV908

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