RAF Sky MAP colour origin?

[GrahamB]

Without wanting to start a whole new long topic about RAF Sky I'm just wanting clarification of the MAP/BS381 colour. I have not seen in any of the various articles about Sky, even in Nick Millman's PDF issue, the origin/date of this chip (reproduced in the RAF Colours book and the more recent Real Colours....). If it is the same as the post war BS381 colour does this mean that the Sky represented is a late war iteration? It certainly does not suggest to me duck egg blue/duck egg blue-green/light sea green etc of the Titanine Camotint and early WW2 period Sky- more like a sickly yellowish grey. It is rather pointless doing various colour matching for, example, BOB period aircraft if this MAP colour is a red herring (so to speak). What did Camotint/Sky 1940-ish really look like?

 

Edited August 1, 2020 by GrahamB

[Graham Boak]

I don't know how you can be so definite that the published chart of Sky is different from whatever was used in 1940.  I should of course add "supposed to be used" because of the known variation and problems associated with the widespread use of Sky in this period.  But none of what I've seen suggest direct evidence that the official colour actually changed.  Duck egg blue is a fairly vague definition.

[Work In Progress]

5 hours ago, GrahamB said:

Without wanting to start a whole new long topic about RAF Sky

Good luck with that. We only just survived the last one. 

[GrahamB]

Hi Graham,

where does it say that I am definite about this? The whole point of the post is to enquire about the source of the MAP colour Sky as is usually depicted. Millman, Lucas, Huntley, Bowyer and others have all said that the composition/colour changed over its life. I wouldn't say duck egg blue/green is vague - and these terms do not mean anything (to me) when I see the MAP colour - sickly yellowish grey (one of my chickens lays beautiful duck-egg blue/green eggs - nothing like MAP Sky). In some period colour photos, especially of later FAA aircraft the Sky looks almost off-white, but still with that yellowish look. I don't think I'm being osbcure or pedantic about what the original duck-egg blue/green Sky looked like. 

Edited August 1, 2020 by GrahamB

[Work In Progress]

If you have not found what you are looking for in the many existing exhaustively argued and cited threads over the last 15 years on this forum on Sky and its origins and alternatives, and the various sources of official and amateur confusion, maybe you should go and do some original research.

 

For what it's worth: for a while I had a general notion that post-war FAA Sky was a different colour from wartime Sky, but subsequently realised that was on the basis of "everyone knows" rather than actual physical evidence, so have renounced that belief. I do however believe that it may have looked different from time to time because of freshness vs / age and particularly varying degrees of matt / glossiness.

 

The only other thing I'll add is to trust nothing in this article as it is one of the most factually-challenged pieces I have ever read on the subject 

https://www.largescaleplanes.com/articles/article.php?aid=743

Edited August 1, 2020 by Work In Progress

[stevehnz]

@GrahamB, if you've read all those articles without realising how difficult it is to be a definite as you seem to expect then perhaps you've missed to point among all the vebiage that tends to creep in to many of these colour threads. A recent thread that has already been alluded to I think established that the term duck egg blue was just a prescriptive phrase, as in what sort of colour is this Sky they're talking about? Oh, a sort of duck egg blue. That was it. As far as I've taken from these threads it never featured as other than that & certainly not an official MAP description, that was contained within the stores numbers which only referred to Sky, type S for a smooth finish. I've not done original research on this, quite difficult from our fair shores but in over 12 years of following such discussions on this & other forums I've not become aware that the war time shade was altered officially in its definition or colour make up & as far as I'm aware, the same definition carried through to the BS381 colour. It seems obvious that when Sky was new as a thing, there was variation as different units used whatever was to hand or what they mixed according to the best info they had, but once the system caught up with itself & proper supplies were available, those variations gradually disappeared from the scene. Sorry if this isn't helpful but I doubt there is a more definitive answer to your query.

Steve

[Graham Boak]

5 hours ago, GrahamB said:

Hi Graham,

where does it say that I am definite about this?

You used the word "certainly".     Seems a fairly definite statement to me.

 

Now I might agree that the colour could be better described.  My suspicion is that there was confusion in the Air Ministry, as there was elsewhere and has been since, between Sky and the official colour Sky Blue.   Quite why Sky Blue, having been specifically prepared for the job by the RAE's camouflage specialists, was replaced by some outsider's favourite, is rather beyond me; but having been exposed to various junior staff officers in my time, and reading memoirs, it seems to me that there were those whose main interest was not in what they were doing but in getting back to flying (see Al Deere's biography) and those who were more interesting in making their mark with an eye on higher rank.   But my suspicions are not enough to justify a new conspiracy theory.

 

However, some years ago Nick Millman (IIRC) posted a large number of photos of duck eggs showing a wide range of colours which included both MAP Sky Blue and MAP Sky.  I'm afraid that your chickens (Hen egg blue?) don't demonstrate anything.

 

Yes, anything that comes with an MAP label post-dates the Battle of Britain, but if the MAP Sky was actually different from the original AM Sky, which may or may not have been different from the pre-war Camotint:  OK, lets see the hard evidence.  Not just the unsupported evidence of ground observers of the time.  We know that undersurfaces of some aircraft of the period were not a good match to Sky, but that's not the same thing as a different official colour.

[Giorgio N]

I can't remember any official document stating any change in Sky during the war. And I can't remember Lucas having stated this in his books. What he stated was that initially there were a shortage of the officially sanctioned colour and a misunderstanding at MU and unit level of what such colour should be, that resulted in the use of various shades.

Lucas again points at the presence of two shades for Sky in the MoS paints list, Finish 9 and Finish 9A. He however also states that these were almost impossible to tell apart. MoS took over from MAP in 1946 so we're already in the postwar years. It was Finish 9A that was incorporated in BS381c in 1964 as 210.

Regarding what the original colour was supposed to look like, Bowyer mentions that the pigments used for Sky were described as white with 4% yellow oxide and a trace of prussian blue. With similar pigments, what is so strange in a yellowish grey with a hint of green? 

[alt-92]

1 hour ago, Graham Boak said:

However, some years ago Nick Millman (IIRC) posted a large number of photos of duck eggs showing a wide range of colours which included both MAP Sky Blue and MAP Sky.  I'm afraid that your chickens (Hen egg blue?) don't demonstrate anything.

 

 

Quite recent example:

 

With regards to eggshell colour variations - I've an experiment to run by you. Change the diet of your chickens, especially if you use ground shells to aid in the digestive systems. Then see what happens with the colour of your brood

Not joking, you can observe the same effect if you change the acidity of the soil (more or less alkaline) with Hydrangeas.

 

 

1 hour ago, Giorgio N said:

 

Regarding what the original colour was supposed to look like, Bowyer mentions that the pigments used for Sky were described as white with 4% yellow oxide and a trace of prussian blue. With similar pigments, what is so strange in a yellowish grey with a hint of green? 

There is the problem already - how much is a trace, and how does it affect the finish?
All of course within the tolerances what the standard prescribes...

 

 

[dogsbody]

Gawd! Not another Sky urination competition!

 

 

 

Chris

[ClaudioN]

FWIW, I read somewhere, long ago, that the term duck-egg blue was coined for the benefit of the Observers Corps. Reportedly, the reasoning was that ROC members might be familiar with the colour of a duck's egg, and that was close enough for aircraft recognition purposes. There can be little arguing that the colour of the sky is quite variable, probably far more than a duck's egg colour.

One should also consider that a neighbouring air force, at the time, was using Hellblau as its undersurface colour and from this perspective the story may sound reasonable: duck's egg = friend, light blue = foe.

So far, so good.

 

As to the official RAF term Sky (capital 'S'), if it is now ascertained that the colour Sky has not changed in 80 years, this is as far as we may go. Production batch variations, aging of colour photos and all the other nice things that make a modeller's life so unique, may have played nice tricks. Knowing that Sky is (expected to be) always Sky is great thing and allows to save on enamel tins/acrylic bottles.

 

When the RAF turned to Medium Sea Grey, nobody seemingly saw the need to explain the change from Sky to Sea by inventing another colloquial term. Maybe radar had mostly taken over over from ROC, but duck's eggs seemingly do not mix with greys.

[GrahamB]

Well, I consider myself thoroughly chastised and lectured-up after reading the replies. Main points for me to go away and digest are: Sky was only the one thing, eye-witnesses from the period are not to be believed (e.g. the excellent Michael Bowyer), many people on this forum cannot perceive subtleties in language (re the chicken egg thing particularly!), and they underestimate people's intelligence and experience (re all the various lectures, off the main point of my post). Trying to make connections/joining the dots was a simple motive for me to ask  about the MAP Sky chip.  Let's leave it there. 😉

[ClaudioN]

26 minutes ago, GrahamB said:

eye-witnesses from the period are not to be believed (e.g. the excellent Michael Bowyer)

I have no wish to start any argument, but from what I can read, it is not my understanding that the messages above suggest Michael Bowyer is not to be believed.

I think Bowyer is a very good source and, in the case of home-based units, relied on personal observations. Indeed, a good deal of what Lucas found on makeshift replacements for Sky as an undersurface colour was already described in Bowyer's "Fighting Colours" more than thirty years before. However, he is somewhat unique in that, as far as I understand, he was at the time a schoolboy with a keen interest in aircraft. Other observers of the time might indeed have been less interested and less accurate, even if they flew.

Each author among the four you mentioned has his own approach and strong points. Whenever possible I'd like to double check, but this is usually not so easy for an armchair researcher like me. 

 

What comes out of the replies above is that supposedly nothing changed from 1946 onwards. This leaves Camotint, AM Sky and MAP Sky out of the picture, and your question unanswered.

I realise that I myself have been straggling, but your original question was quite hard.

When you report that some authors say "composition/colour changed over its life", my first thought is this may or may not mean that the actual colour reference varied. I have no interest in "lecturing" you on anything, but you may realise that the reply to your question "what did Camotint/Sky 1940-ish really look like?" might be: what do you mean, "really"? Is it the official colour you are after, or the look of it on some specific aircraft, or a possible history of its changes? Whatever, I suspect there is no easy, single answer.

 

 

 

[MilneBay]

I must admit that when I built my selection of Battle of Britain aircraft I tried to cover some of the proposed variations of Sky over the period. I admit that the hue chosen may not have been correct for a particular aircraft, in the strict sense of an accurate model, as it was more an exercise in trying to depict changes over time so earlier BoB aircraft had the most subtle differences while towards the later period the colour used on the models became more standardised. Correct or not I soon found that while the broad concept of Sky as a colour (to my eye a very pale yellowish green grey) seemed to be apparent the variations were quite numerous. But then it was an exercise surprisingly lacking in scientific data but remarkably backed by anecdotal "data" 😉   

[Troy Smith]

5 hours ago, ClaudioN said:

When the RAF turned to Medium Sea Grey, nobody seemingly saw the need to explain the change from Sky to Sea by inventing another colloquial term.

when the RAF switched to Sky, they had been using a high visibilty scheme beforehand though,  and were expecting enemy aircraft.  

Medium Sea Grey was introduced when the RAF switched over to an offensive role as well.

 

There are some very good comments in the Ducimus guide to Spitfire camo,  on the introduction to Sky

2nd column in particular

 

a

In particular, the comments further down starting "some reports have quoted..." 

 

5 years  ago,  I did a load of searching about through various thread and added some other cuttings in a thread on Sky Grey, which for anyone new to the whole debate may find interesting,  or a handy refresher otherwise.  if you move a pointer over the top right of the quotes in the link, you can follow into the threads mentioned, as it can be difficult or time consuming to find them by searching. 

 

 

HTH

 

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

9 hours ago, GrahamB said:

Well, I consider myself thoroughly chastised and lectured-up after reading the replies. Main points for me to go away and digest are: Sky was only the one thing, eye-witnesses from the period are not to be believed (e.g. the excellent Michael Bowyer), many people on this forum cannot perceive subtleties in language (re the chicken egg thing particularly!), and they underestimate people's intelligence and experience (re all the various lectures, off the main point of my post). Trying to make connections/joining the dots was a simple motive for me to ask  about the MAP Sky chip.  Let's leave it there. 😉

 

Graham, can I suggest that this type of post is precisely why these threads descent into the type of handbag slinging mess that gets them locked.

 

Perhaps it could be rephrased somewhat?

 

 

Regarding the actual colour, as you may know I've done some primary source research and what I will say is that the worst "researchers" walk in with a preconceived idea then start looking for evidence to prove it. Researchers who earn any sort of positive reputation in the field gather as much facts as possible, map them out in terms of time and how they inter-relate and see where it leads to.

 

What do we know then?

 

We know there was confusion in what to apply and we know there were at least two finishes of Sky but that they were very difficult to distinguish. We know a description was given of duck eggs blue, but we also know that descriptions are often bizarre looking at them with cold eyes (would Dark Slate Grey conjure up a mental image of a olive shade to anyone not intimately familiar with Coastal Command and the Fleet Air Arm? It seems a misnomer to me...)

 

So:

 

1) I would not bet my house on the precise colour values of the undersides of any Battle of Britain aircraft, because the paint may or may not have actually been Sky, Sky Blue, or something improvised to fit someone's idea of either "the sky" or "duck egg blue", and that's ignoring any potential batch variance or application variance of whatever paint they used.

 

2) I cannot discount the idea that Sky as an official colour standard shifted during the duration of WWII, however I have seen zero evidence to suggest that it did. Going back to what makes good and bad researchers - it would be a spectacularly bad "researcher" would began loudly hypothesising that Battle of Britain Sky was probably different from MAP Sky on the basis that nobody could conclusively provide a paint chip from 1940 demonstrating it remained the same purely because someone described it as "duck egg blue".

 

If you sincerely believe you're on to something then do something constructive and get some hours in at The National Archives and see if you can find correspondence which indicates a change in the colour.

 

This isn't an untrodden path though and the only sticking point appears to be that unofficial description of "duck egg blue".

 

Here's another dubious description - it's the rather mature paint company Farrow and Ball's No.22 Light Blue, a product they've made for a very long time. Its actual measurable, scientifically instrumented colour data is yellow-green.

 

 

 

What I'm getting at is that when it comes to relatively low saturation colours near grey, the perceived shade is very much a function of the ambient light and, absolutely not to be underplayed, the quality of the viewer's eyes. Not all humans are created equal in this regard...

 

Descriptions can be useful, but if "duck egg blue" as a description clashes with everything else we have, then I'd suggest delving into exactly where that description originated and by whom and why would be the first port of call on any new research trip.

[Scimitar F1]

My wife would die for your house Jamie!

[iang]

5 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

 

 

Descriptions can be useful, but if "duck egg blue" as a description clashes with everything else we have, then I'd suggest delving into exactly where that description originated and by whom and why would be the first port of call on any new research trip.

 

 

I think that the term originates in the flurry of cypher messages send out by the Air Ministry in early June 1940, rather than in Air Ministry Orders.  Specifically, the key cypher message of 7 June (X.915 at 14.55 7.6.40) which was addressed to All Commands, AA.Command, Admiralty, War Office, repeated RNAS, that mandated the change of  undersurface colour to sky type S (not capitalised), was clarified later the same day to the same recipients by a cypher message X.39 (19.33 7.6.40), which states:

 

'"Reference my  X.915 7/6 the colour of camouflage sky type S may be described as duck egg bluish-green"

 

The Admiralty promulgated the instruction to RNAS and Ark Royal, Glorious, Illustrious by cypher message the same day (the exact time stamp is not readable on my copy) as:

 

"Entire undersurface of all British fighter aircraft are to be painted very pale sky blue", which is why Skuas ended up with very pale sky blue undersurfaces rather than Sky (this is now  known for sure from archeological evidence from Skuas involved in the Scharnhorst attack on 13 June).

 

 

For the FAA camouflage and markings book, I'd like to think I did a thorough job of examining all the Air Ministry and Admiralty files relating to the introduction of the new colour and cypher message X.39 is the first description I found that used the term "duck egg". Of course, there may be documents buried at TNA that would illuminate this further, that I did not see, but that is always true of primary research.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 2, 2020 by iang

[Scimitar F1]

I was discussing a similar topic with Jamie earlier in the year. The 2000 Lucas book goes for the best primary evidence that I have seen in parts - bits of crashed aircraft from 1940. Each to their own but I found this convincing. 
 

Will

[GrahamB]

Ian, your FAA camouflage book is  excellent and your research on the use of duck egg blue/green term is almost certainly definitive. It remains a puzzle as to why the blue aspect was introduced but this was part of the conundrum I was trying to sort out for myself and why it didn't match with my perception of the MAP chip as reproduced in the Millman PDF and Real Colours book.

 

I am perturbed by the comments by Jamie about me, and receiving another lecture about research, "being on to something" etc. Also, Millman in the Real Colours book states categorically that the ingredients/composition of the Sky changed - although whether this influenced the actual colour (shifting from a putative bluish-green [Camotint?] to a more yellowish green?) is moot. Anyway, I think this should wrap things up.

 

From far-away New Zealand - no British National Archives near at hand!

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

3 hours ago, Scimitar F1 said:

My wife would die for your house Jamie!

 

I think that's Farrow & Ball's studio - I'm familiar with the colour as I used it as a starting target for a new product a while ago... I found this on Google images! I do like the oar though

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

1 hour ago, GrahamB said:

Ian, your FAA camouflage book is  excellent and your research on the use of duck egg blue/green term is almost certainly definitive. It remains a puzzle as to why the blue aspect was introduced but this was part of the conundrum I was trying to sort out for myself and why it didn't match with my perception of the MAP chip as reproduced in the Millman PDF and Real Colours book.

 

I am perturbed by the comments by Jamie about me, and receiving another lecture about research, "being on to something" etc. Also, Millman in the Real Colours book states categorically that the ingredients/composition of the Sky changed - although whether this influenced the actual colour (shifting from a putative bluish-green [Camotint?] to a more yellowish green?) is moot. Anyway, I think this should wrap things up.

 

From far-away New Zealand - no British National Archives near at hand!

 

Graham you're not being "lectured" but I'm not going to contribute any further to this.

[Grey Beema]

7 hours ago, iang said:

 

 

I think that the term originates in the flurry of cypher messages send out by the Air Ministry in early June 1940, rather than in Air Ministry Orders.  Specifically, the key cypher message of 7 June (X.915 at 14.55 7.6.40) which was addressed to All Commands, AA.Command, Admiralty, War Office, repeated RNAS, that mandated the change of  undersurface colour to sky type S (not capitalised), was clarified later the same day to the same recipients by a cypher message X.39 (19.33 7.6.40), which states:

 

'"Reference my  X.915 7/6 the colour of camouflage sky type S may be described as duck egg bluish-green"

 

The Admiralty promulgated the instruction to RNAS and Ark Royal, Glorious, Illustrious by cypher message the same day (the exact time stamp is not readable on my copy) as:

 

"Entire undersurface of all British fighter aircraft are to be painted very pale sky blue", which is why Skuas ended up with very pale sky blue undersurfaces rather than Sky (this is now  known for sure from archeological evidence from Skuas involved in the Scharnhorst attack on 13 June).

 

 

 

Would you mind a little thread hi-Jack for a couple of minutes please?

 

For the MTO GB later this year I want to build a Skua flown by Lt Cdr JM Bruen who was Commanding Officer, 803 Squadron FAA HMS Ark Royal.  On 31.08.40 Bruen shared in the destruction of a Cant Z501 and a S.79 off Balearic Isles Flying Blackburn Skua II L2927/A.

 

@iang, Would L2927/A have had the S1E with Sky Grey fuselage sides and pale blue undersides at this time?  

How pale was the pale blue?

 

Sorry, hi-Jack finished..

 

[iang]

That's a bit more tricky. I suggest starting a new thread (which I'll do now)

Edited August 2, 2020 by iang

[Giorgio N]

On 8/1/2020 at 1:31 PM, alt-92 said:

 

There is the problem already - how much is a trace, and how does it affect the finish?

All of course within the tolerances what the standard prescribes...

 

 

Not only that: the generic indication of white can be misleading as different white pigments may lead to slightly different colours and it is possible that something similar may have happened, particularly in the early days