P-40 Colors and American Manufacturers

[thx6667]

But you are welcome to be derisive of US efforts and assume what you want.

Not derisive and assuming nothing, just placing it within the historical context that, far from "many who are not from the United States" not understanding the expediency of wartime manufacturing, British industry was already well versed in it, more so given the day to day inconveniences of Herr Hitler's rather progressive urban renewal programme.

[timbo33]

.....But you are welcome to be derisive of US efforts and assume what you want....

Sorry if anyone is offended.

Nobody's deriding America's influence on the War, either it's production or it's fighting men and women. The US was after all the 'Arsenal of Democracy' even before December 1941. The point was simply being made that Britain was rather more used to expediency than the US which experienced neither bombing of it's populations or factories nor rationing.....

[Nick Millman]

1937 for the Chinese.

Timbo has struck a golden seam of thought which almost invokes good old Occam's razor. Why would US manufacturers get the Dark Green and Dark Earth closely matched, using Du Pont paints as well, but then get all cheap and expedient over the undersurface paint and choose a completely different colour from that required? Not logical and not very likely. We know they didn't get Sky confused (as originally alleged by the Sky Grey theorists) because the US factory paint shop drawings (even very early ones) mostly specify "Duck Egg Blue' instead (and it is hard to believe that anyone interpreted that description as 'grey'). So the question remains why choose a light grey instead of the correct - or near correct - colour?

Plus the case has been made that the US records (literally) paint a different story to those in the UK, the actual words used being that this research is "closer to the truth". If that is to be believed, and we have seen no actual primary evidence from this research, then the aircraft must have mysteriously changed colour half way across the Atlantic. The A&AEE reports make it clear that the factory painted undersurfaces on Airacobra AH573 and P-40 AK784 were close enough in appearance to AM Sky to be officially assessed as being correctly painted in the colours required by the RAF.

How do we know that the paint referred to in one of the contracts was a "greyish grey"? (Aren't all greys "greyish" btw?) Description? Paint swatch? How do we know these paints were used from the tin and not to be mixed? The implied use of the term "greyish grey" in a paint supply contract makes me a bit suspicious. If there is a paint sample then measure it and let's see its value so we can compare it with the other colours that we know - or at least match it to something even visually and subjectively. We have a measured value for 71-021. The closest standard Munsell to the swatch is 10 GY 8/1 (sRGB 195 205 193). Closest FS 595b is 25622 @ 1.50 - but 25622 is lighter, greyer and not quite so green as the actual colour. The purpose of this swatch was to assist UK manufacturers charged to support the imported American aircraft with colour matches during repairs/overhauls and in addition to the matched card there was a list of equivalent colours to be used in expedient matches. This evidence reveals how closely the American paint manufacturers understood and matched to RAF Sky. The '71 series' colour card chip is closer to 10 Y 7/2 (sRGB 178 177 148), "warmer" and more yellow than the swatch which is "colder", but I suspect the chips on the card may have aged more than the swatch because of the storage methods. The closest FS 595b value is 34424 @ 2.87 but the FS is greener and less yellow, much closer to the original RAF Sky. It may be that Du Pont wanted to make this chip look closer to RAF Sky to 'promote' 71-021 as the best match to the MAP and BAC people.

There is a lack of precise detail in this paint contract research which makes the faith of its adherents puzzling. The paint contract research may indeed be "closer to the truth" but until the mysterious researcher publishes or makes public the fruits of his or her research it remains intriguing hearsay. I remain cynical about the shift from the original hypothesis: "They confused Sky for Sky Grey" to the current: "They used any old paint which happened to be light grey for expediency and/or cost cutting". It seems as though the belief in a light grey is being perpetuated come what may by constructing the facts from the hypothesis rather than constructing the hypothesis from the facts. One really has to determine why someone should choose light grey instead of the required, specified and correct colour and why such a divergent substitute was accepted. Still maintaining a hope for light grey I would be delighted to see such evidence discovered.

"Did the British Purchasing Commission place Resident Technical Officers (or an equivalent) in the US factories manufacturing to UK Government contracts pre-lendlease?"

They had an inspectorate and inspection/acceptance procedures. K J Meekcoms provides much detail, including the format of Test Reports and a summary of the British Air Ministry Inspection and Contracts Administration Procedure, in 'The British Air Commission and Lend Lease' (Air-Britain 2000). One of the earliest points of discussion was how far the Inspectorate could "trust" US manufacturers to follow the requirements because they didn't have enough people to take up station in the factories. The guys involved in acceptance were attuned to deviance from requirement so I think they might have noticed if aircraft supposed to be Sky/Duck Egg Blue turned up painted grey instead. In addition, as mentioned, British manufacturers, such as Fairey, were charged with providing post-delivery support for specific US manufacturers and were therefore given paint and camouflage data from those US factories, including pigment formulae and swatches of paint. The Du Pont Sky equivalent 71-021 was used as a match colour for these purposes. In other words the British were pointing to 71-021 and saying "We don't care whose paint you buy but we want the undersurface colour to match this" and the US manufacturers were sending the data back and saying "We used this (71-021) to match the paint we applied underneath the aircraft". Therefore there was leeway for close or even approximate matching but not really to change the colour from Sky/Duck Egg Blue to a light grey.

[LDSModeller]

Did the British Purchasing Commission place Resident Technical Officers (or an equivalent) in the US factories manufacturing to UK Government contracts pre-lendlease?

John

Hi all

As mentioned previous I displayed some pages from "Britain's Wonderful Air Force"

to answer John's question from pages 292-293

With the likes of Sir Hugh Dowding, holding the reins, some one who very intimately I think, understood

the importance of aircraft manufacture-Demand and Supply.

More importantly the comment (second page) Quote " the consequent willingness of most American manufacturers

to allow the British up to a point to "call the tune" Unquote, appears to me that the US aircraft builders were happy

to accomodate RAF requirements as far as they were able to.

Take for example the Brewster Buffalo 339E, if Brewster for all it's faults, managed to get the Buffalo physical air frame built

to British Air Ministery Specs, (and they sure did) surely paint requirements would follow suit? And we are only talking a mere 170 aircraft

Check out this photo, the underside looks remarkably similar/the same as the early P 40's in the youtube link posted by me

Regards

Alan