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RAF CFS Jet Provost T-3 Tip Tank Colour


typhoon1

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Hi There

Wonder if someone could please help I building a CFS Jet Provost T-3 in overall red but the one i am doing carry's the tip tanks in a different colour, it looks like silver tanks with red or dayglo orange  strips I cannot make out between the two it's a old picture a friend gave me.

Would someone  please no the correct colour.

Many Thanks

 

Craig

 

 

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Do you have a date for that photograph?. The Red Pelicans T.4’s started off in a 1963 overall scheme of Fluorescent Red (including wing tanks). Sometime later, these tanks changed to silver and photos of the Red Pelicans flying with Yellowjacks Gnats must place this period to around 1964. The Airfix starter set scheme is a deeper overall Red colour and they date this scheme as 1966. So the question remains, what was the colour of the airframe when these tanks changed colour - Fluorescent Red or just plain Red?
 

Cheer.. Dave 
 

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There's a Red Pelicans shot here that may be useful: https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1635587 Looks like fluorescent red to me, with silver tanks (with fluorescent flash), and the photo is dated as 1965.

I note that the photo may not be used or published without permission. Presumably it's fine to look at.

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33 minutes ago, typhoon1 said:

Thank you for the reply gents i will go for silver tanks and strips the same red as airframe. 

Craig - when you say you are doing your JP in 'overall red', I presume you mean in the scheme that the kit includes for the Red Pelicans?  If so, the tip tanks were the same solid red ( Humbrol 19) as the rest of the airframe during the 1966-68 seasons.  When the team aircraft were painted fluorescent/dayglo red overall during the 1963-64 seasons, the tip tanks were always silver with dayglo stripes in four positions  above & below and down the sides.

Edited by AMB
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40 minutes ago, AMB said:

during the 1963-64 seasons, the tip tanks were always silver with dayglo stripes in four positions  above & below and down the sides.

Not always! 

 

 

 

 

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Lovely footage!  I noted that during one segment when coming out of a loop over an  airfield the airfield code of 'KM' Must have been Kemble.   But proof enough of the overrall tip tank colour.  Obviously the tanks got changed around time  to time.

 

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I took this photograph of the first Jet Provost to be painted in Red Pelican colours in April 1963. XP550-41 is pictured on the team's line at Little Rissington shortly before participating in its first practice sortie in the new colours. Note the fancy initial tip tank artwork.

 

XP550-41_LR_04-63_RD-600x400.jpg

 

 

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Edited by Radfan Hunters
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Superb pictures. Interesting. I recall seeing the Pelicans and thinking the colour wasn't the Blaze Orange Dayglo that the Gnats & standard JP3s were painted with but a brighter colour, though also Dayglo. Fluorescent Red, which was rather heavy as an overall finish  . I thought they were later repainted in Bright Red - 'Humbrol 19' equivalent as 'AMB' says, to save weight and to reduce fading.

 

I recall seeing the Yellowjacks at Valley, though before they painted any of the fins black. I thought they were very neat and of course we had no idea what would develop from that. As S/L Prince says, in those days it was possible to stretch the rules further and more blind eyes were turned. Headquarters was a long way away then &  I believe from comments I heard that F/L Jones had some friends in the system, which helped things along.  Wonderful days, when we had lots of aircraft and plenty of bases to fly them from. 

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