Henschel 126 desert colour schemes

[AdrianMF]

I’m in the middle of a Matchbox GB Henschel 126 and I have a dilemma.

 

Pictures on the web of 5F+AK and its mates in the same squadron show sand roughly applied over 70+71 with lots of green showing through on the fuselage.

 

The Matchbox and Italeri instructions, as well as others, show a combo of this ragged fuselage overpainting with smooth uniform wing and tail overpainting. 
 

I’ve seen no photos of the wing camouflage and I’m rather sceptical about the mix of seemingly professional paint job plus ragged repaint.

 

Can anyone shed more light on what the wings looked like? I’ve seen nothing to help in my limited library or the web.

 

Thanks,

Adrian

[SafetyDad]

Hi Adrian

 

this might help

 

 

this book charts the history of the Hs 126 in a recce role in North Africa. 

 

According to the text there were two schemes used by the Hs 126 - an initial 'European painted over with sand' scheme for the first batch of aircraft, and then a factory applied 78/79 scheme on later aircraft.

 

So here is the first scheme (as well as your chosen aircraft above)

 

 

The book has an extensive colour section, but upperwing shots are not common (probably due to the parasol wing). This next shot is the best I can find - all we have is the aerial above the wing, so I'm making a reasoned assumption ( I know, dangerous...) that the wing was painted in the same manner

 

 

 

Then there's this shot - the fuselage has certainly been overpainted with sand (look at the Hakenkreuz and the mottle on the tailplane, but the wings appear to be uniform sand (as per your kit instructions). But look again at the wing centre section - I think this sand has been overpainted on top of the original 70/71 camo. Much neater than the fuselage.  Hmmm.....

 

 

 

 

Now we get to the second batch of aircraft with allover sand camo. 

 

 

So the kit instructions might be correct (or might not - sorry). I wonder if the painters reasoned that looking down from above the aircraft camo needed to be completely sand to hide it, whereas from the side there was a need to break up the outline of the machine so more mottling was used?  

 

(All posted in accordance with UK Copyright Law for the purposes of discussion and intentionally slightly distorted to discourage further duplication)

 

 

 

HTH

 

SD

[AdrianMF]

Thanks SD! Very helpful.

This is where I’m at, with the fuselage scheme as per photos and wing scheme as per instructions:

I based the fuselage on the first two photos that you have posted. The third photo seems a bit different but , as you say, the aerial has had the splotchy treatment.

 

Looking at the towing (fourth) photo, the fuselage is blotchy and the arms of the swastikas have green in the creases so it looks like an overpaint job. The tailplane looks blotchy and the wings less so, but “less”could be caused by brightness, focus or perspective/viewing angle.

 

The last photo looks totally smooth sand all over, with no European camo at all.
 

So for me the Matchbox/Italeri scheme doesn’t stand up. If the paint job is smooth it doesn’t have European camo underneath.

I’ll strip down the wings and repaint. It’s what I wanted to do but I thought I’d check first!

 

Thanks,

Adrian

[SafetyDad]

Go for it Adrian!

 

Watching with interest

 

SD