Interesting PR Spitfire pic

[Dave Fleming]

Posted on the Facebook page for the restoration/rebuild of AA810. Thoughts on the black area behind the engine? Painted over the exhaust stain? Oil Leak? Photo processing error/artefact?

[Vingtor]

Oil spill....?

[Giorgio N]

Nice picture, always good to see a PR Spitfire !

I'll have a look in more depth later, first thought is that the black area is some sort of artefact as it looks too uniformly black to me. Behind this there's also visble a trace of exhaust stains, that in theory should have marked the black area in some way had this been painted on the aircraft.

Edited December 10, 2020 by Giorgio N

[fishplanebeer]

No knowledge about the actual pic but I agree that the black mark is too uniform in colour and too precise in shape to be any form of staining and is more akin to some addition/re-touching/amendment after the original exposure.

 

Maybe just a bad attempt using photo shop or similar?

 

Regards

Colin.

[Graham Boak]

Looks like an oil leak to me too, they can appear solid and black, and it appears at the junction between the engine cowling and the forward fuselage., then widens.

[Simon]

It's from the IWM website (is the serial possibly R7059...?):

 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205088110

 

If it is R7059, then there's another photo here:

 

https://www.asisbiz.com/il2/Spitfire/RAF-1PRU/pages/Spitfire-PRIG-RAF-1PRU-LY-R7059-St-Eval-Cornwall-England-1941-web-01.html

 

 

Simon

 

 

[Edge]

Could it be shadow from an exhaust glare shield or similar? Seems to be at the same angles as the shadow of the exhaust.

 

Edge

 

[gingerbob]

I was also thinking that shadow might be involved, though it seems far too "solid" for just that. 

[brewerjerry]

Hi

    i have very little knowledge on pr spits

 

     but is there anything in that position that a wartime censor would have covered up 

 

   cheers

     jerry 

[gingerbob]

Not that I can think of, Jerry.

[Richard502]

As for shadow, compare the shadow under the horizontal tail plane: this is much lighter than the black "thing" below the cockpit.

[FinnAndersen]

If it is oil spill, I'd expect it to continue to run backwards. This thing seems to stop abruptly. On the other hand, there seems to be a smear along the fuselage. 

 

Another mystery: Why the sharp distinction at the lower edge? There is no panels on a Spit running that way.

 

/Finn

[Dave Fleming]

4 hours ago, Simon said:

It's from the IWM website (is the serial possibly R7059...?):

 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205088110

 

If it is R7059, then there's another photo here:

 

https://www.asisbiz.com/il2/Spitfire/RAF-1PRU/pages/Spitfire-PRIG-RAF-1PRU-LY-R7059-St-Eval-Cornwall-England-1941-web-01.html

 

 

Simon

 

 

 

It's certainly R507 something . If you blow up the IWM photo you can see the shadow on the camera fairing on the edge of the roundel. But that shape is even more intriguing

 

Interesting that area appears to have been cleaned on the second pic. 

 

Roundel proportions are interesting!

[Black Knight]

Is there a camera or other optic there? There seems to be something attached to fuselage at the top edge of the black.

If there are optics there it could be matt black paint put on as an anti-glare for the optics

[silberpferd]

I'd go with oil spill/leak

 

[sloegin57]

Had a fiddle with the picture - possibly R7056 which makes it a Type D (PR.IV).  R7059 was built as a batch of 450 Spitfire I/V by Supermarine and emerged as a Mk.I and not converted to Mk.V it appears.  The only other "705?" converted was R7055.  Also appears to have an access just fwd of the roundel for the 20gal fuel tank which made the D's so awkward to handle on take off and until the tank was empty.  The black mark is a mystery but I do not think it is an oil leak.  Note also how what appears to be black paint has been applied around the exhausts and seemingly "painted" over the same. :-

 

 

I do not think that the photo was taken at the same time as the 1st linked photo.  Note the protrusion from top of the windscreen, the object at the top of the black mark and the complete lack of sheen where the black mark translates over the fuselage/wing fairing. 

HTH

Dennis

[Black Knight]

Another thought. 

Its a random black area to make an enemy look twice

Some 'Razor back' P47s had the spine painted black to make them look at first see as 'tear drop canopy' P47s

Some P-51 with high spines were painted the same way

In WW1 some pilots had stripe designs on the turtle backs of their fighters, but the stripes were painted off-set and uneven to confuse the eyes of an enemy

Polish aircraft had different sized insignia off-set on the tops of their wings for the same purpose

[Norrie S]

I think what we are seeing is liquid oil flowing under the influence of the propwash, plus gravity, backwards down the fuselage.  Oil from the surface of this flow then being 'blown off' backwards producing a lighter stain in the direction of the airflow.

[Andy Fletcher]

It is R7059 and is being flown by Pt Off Murray Anderson.

 

 

[Giorgio N]

I have tried to enlarge the picture but the original is too small to get anything of interest. In any case this showed even better that the black area is totally uniform in shade and has very clear edges, something that is not typical of oil spills. An oil spill may start well defined but then the edges will be feathered into the underlying finish by the effect of the airflow. This can be seen in the B-17 and P-51 pictures posted above. On that Spitfire there's nothing of the kind and the "spill" ends with a well defined and very unnatural circle. The exhaust stains, that are partly hidden under the black area, on the other hand show a typical aspect.

Then there is the fact that while the black area is over surfaces at different angles, the fuselage sides and the wing-fuselage fairing, the apparent reflectivity is the same on all these areas while I'd have expected some kind of difference, like the difference that can be seen in the aircraft pink finish.

These two aspects make me believe that the black area is "man made" and the latter in particular leads me to something applied over the picture rather than on the aircraft. May be some artefact during the image reproduction or the hand of a censor trying to hide something

[ben_m]

I believe this is a R7059, in PRU Pink, a Mk. I PR Type G, as it has armoured windscreen and small inboard roundels. I'm inclined to think the black mark is an oil spill. Also interested in the fairing for the rear downward oblique camera position (shown more clearly in the second link posted by Simon https://www.asisbiz.com/il2/Spitfire/RAF-1PRU/pages/Spitfire-PRIG-RAF-1PRU-LY-R7059-St-Eval-Cornwall-England-1941-web-01.html ). It seems to cast a 'shadow' that is too dark to be a shadow, the same density as the putative oil spill.

[ben_m]

15 hours ago, sloegin57 said:

 

 

Note the protrusion from top of the windscreen,

Looks like the port aileron hinge line to me.

[Graham Boak]

The problem with the "shadow" theory is that the shadow from the exhausts seems to  be so much lighter.  Yet does also appear to be at the same angle as the oil streak.  I find it very difficult to see why anyone should decorate a PR aircraft with such a distinctive yet abstract shape, so I rule that out.  Note that there is not a single diagonal streak but a secondary blob in the direction of the slipstream, as if one large glob coming out had calved a second one as it broke up into smears.

 

I'm not familiar with fairings before the starboard oblique window (behind the cockpit, not out on the port wing) but they do make some kind of sense.  And the shadow (if that is what it is) is again elongated like the shadows of the exhaust, yet darker!

[mhaselden]

I give another vote for oil leak.  It starts right at the aft edge of the engine cowling and has been blown backwards by the slipstream.  

[ClaudioN]

There's a smaller dark stain/leak/dot, right in front of the fuselage roundel, that might come from a fuselage panel. Does anybody see any similarity?