Spitfire Vc BR344 (M o 3)

[Phoenix44]

The part that I think the OP refers to is this apparently much darker panel which corresponds to the panels missing in the loading pictures. In this other picture, 3-F has a conspicuously lighter panel which doesn't match the camoflage pattern and which looks like the panel on the aircraft on the left of the original photo.

https://i.ibb.co/jc8Y7cL/Spitfires-on-the-USS-Wasp-for-delivery-to-Malta.jpg

 

 

[Tail-Dragon]

In the above photo, they apparently played quite a bit of 'mix and match' with the cowl side panels. One thing I noticed, the spinner colors.  The 'Temperate scheme' as originally painted, would have had Sky spinners (light color), and the 'Tropical scheme' would have had Red spinners (dark color) - 3*F and 3*B have quite a dark lower surface (Azure blue?) and a dark spinner. 3*D has what appears as a 'Temperate scheme'.  Is that a clue to the 'as loaded' schemes?

[Troy Smith]

50 minutes ago, Tail-Dragon said:

and the 'Tropical scheme' would have had Red spinners (dark color)

 

Just for clarity,  AFAIK there was no 'tropical scheme'*,   The scheme used in the tropics was Temperate Land Scheme uppers 

 

Red spinners were  a Mediterranean theatre marking, not factory applied.  the factory applied colour was black or the relevant upper surface colour

 

The artist, Elsie Dalton Hewland has a near photographic eye for colour and detail. 

 

@Paul Lucas  the wing joint strip on LD297  and the DFS Hurricane behind is worth noting.

 

*it has been discussed that there was a Dark Green/Middle Stone scheme,  there are papers for it and possible photos. 

 

  HTH

[brewerjerry]

33 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

......

 

The artist, Elsie Dalton Hewland has a near photographic eye for colour and detail. 

 

@Paul Lucas

*it has been discussed that there was a Dark Green/Middle Stone scheme,  there are papers for it and possible photos. 

 

Hi

     apolligy for slight thread drift 

 

     interesting painting it appears to have a 193Sqn Typhoon DP-N 

   I have a copy of the memo dark green / mid stone from the na/pro on a harddrive

    cheers

       jerry

Edited February 13 by brewerjerry
not had first coffee yet

[11bravo]

On 2/12/2025 at 3:11 PM, Graham Boak said:

Ship store paint would affect the performance of the aircraft.  Try explaining that to Churchill or Roosevelt,  But these aircraft had already been repainted in the UK, once before delivery to Glasgow for loading and once after "Jumbo" Gracie had complained that it wasn't right.  Just who is going to authorise a repainting again using unsuitable materials under unsuitable conditions?  Certainly not Gracie.  Was the captain of the Wasp looking for a court-martial?  These photos do show a neat finish which would simply not have been attainable.  I grant you that aircraft on the first trip (Calendar) look pretty much like a rush job, which is probably why the whole idea arose, but these on the second trip  (Bowery) are much neater.

Both Color Conundrums (which now seems to have set the standard for research into these paint schemes) and Cauchi's earlier book both present convincing evidence that these aircraft were indeed repainted on Wasp, using non-RAF paints.   Given that we'll probably never find conclusive evidence either way, you, of course, are free to believe whatever you want to.   Whether they used Deck Blue paint or the new color that Wasp was testing on some of it's air wing F4F's is irrelevant since, per Dana Bell, the aircraft paint was supposed to be have been a match for Deck Blue.  

 

On a related note, are there any pictures out there of Spitfires on Malta still wearing the "temporary" Wasp delivery codes?   I always wondered about that aspect of those paint jobs.   If they were used for nothing more than sorting out the aircraft for their deliver flight to Malta and were then supposed to be been quickly removed, why did they go to such trouble to paint them on so uniformly, in the same size / layout as squadron codes, when they could have simply just chalked on the codes by hand and wiped them off upon arrival on Malta?

Edited February 17 by 11bravo

[uncarina]

Here is my interpretation of the subject aircraft, using U.S. Navy blue-grey and deck blue. It’s a 1/32 combination of the Laminar Flow Designs Vc conversion, with a combination of the Kotare Va and the Tamiya IXc kits.

 

https://flic.kr/ps/45mWu9

 

Cheers,  Tom

Edited March 12 by uncarina

[Troy Smith]

10 minutes ago, uncarina said:

Here is my interpretation of the subject aircraft, using U.S. Navy blue-grey and deck blue. It’s a 1/32 combination of the Laminar Flow Designs Vc conversion, with a combination of the Kotare Va and the Tamiya IXc kits.

 

https://flic.kr/ps/45mWu9

 

Cheers,  Tom

 

using the flickr share option

 

[uncarina]

Thanks. The Flickr and Imgur share options aren’t working for me on this forum (the link I added is the share link, won’t work in the “insert from URL” box) maybe an I-Pad issue.

 

Cheers,  Tom

Edited March 12 by uncarina

[Troy Smith]

32 minutes ago, uncarina said:

won’t work in the “insert from URL” box

common problem, as it seems the obvious way, but you just need to paste the link in the reply area, and the forum software does the rest.

same with images, copy image URL, paste in here.  

HTH

[gingerbob]

6 hours ago, uncarina said:

It’s a 1/32 combination of the Laminar Flow Designs Vc conversion, with a combination of the Kotare Va and the Tamiya IXc kits.

 

My goodness, that's an expensive recipe!  The result looks very nice, but (forgive me) from that one image it looks startlingly like a later-camo Fighter Command Spitfire.  That is, the colours seem rather orthodox- not what we've come to expect from Malta Spits!

[uncarina]

 

On 3/12/2025 at 2:22 AM, gingerbob said:

 

My goodness, that's an expensive recipe!  The result looks very nice, but (forgive me) from that one image it looks startlingly like a later-camo Fighter Command Spitfire.  That is, the colours seem rather orthodox- not what we've come to expect from Malta Spits!

 

Not necessarily. You just need to buy the LFD conversion, the Kotare kit, and a few Tamiya sprues.

 

Not a late color Spitfire at all. The USS Wasp would presumably have had USN Deck Blue and USN Blue-Grey paint, per accounts from the Colour Conundrum Compendium and Malta Spitfires books. Rendering my build black and white shows a resemblance to the period photo.

 

 

Cheers,  Tom

[uncarina]

On 3/11/2025 at 8:22 PM, Troy Smith said:

common problem, as it seems the obvious way, but you just need to paste the link in the reply area, and the forum software does the rest.

same with images, copy image URL, paste in here.  

HTH

Thanks Troy, my original post had the share link in the reply area as well. Apparently it is an I-Pad Safari issue.

 

Cheers,  Tom