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What color(s) spinners on this Tsetse Mosquito?


wally7506

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Mosquito FB.VIII

PZ468 QM-D June 1945

What are the spinners colors, really.

The latest I have is Sky with white bands. I'm not too sure about that. Sky usually comes off looking darn near close to white in b/w photos.

MSG with white maybe?

qmd.jpg

qmd1.jpg

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Mosquito FB.VIII

PZ468 QM-D June 1945

What are the spinners colors, really.

The latest I have is Sky with white bands. I'm not too sure about that. Sky usually comes off looking darn near close to white in b/w photos.

MSG with white maybe?

I presume you've already seen issue 5 of Airfix Model World, which has an article on converting the 1/24 Mossie into this version - it states that the spinners should be painted Tamiya XF-21 Sky with white band.

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It can be very difficult trying to tell what colours are from B/W photographs, a colour artwork in Warpaint special on the Mosquito shows this particular aircraft as having overall Medium Sea Grey inc Spinners with White bands, It also makes note that the slipper tanks are Aluminium.

Derek

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Alex Crawfords book "Shipbuster - Mosquito Mk XVIII "Tse-tse" - An Operational History" has a black and white pic and a colour profile of this bird and the texts calls it as Sky with a white band. It could be right or wrong but given the work was well received and seems to have just about everything you need to know on this variant I'd be happy plumping for sky and white myself

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I presume you've already seen issue 5 of Airfix Model World, which has an article on converting the 1/24 Mossie into this version - it states that the spinners should be painted Tamiya XF-21 Sky with white band.

No I haven't read the Airfix Model World article.

Did they have a color picture?

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Aside from the spinners, what about the colour of the patch on the rear fuselage, repair?

Glenn.

Not a repair, it's where the invasion stripes have been overpainted. Take note of the darker grey nose piece, possibly an unpainted replacement panel.

Chris

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I presume you've already seen issue 5 of Airfix Model World, which has an article on converting the 1/24 Mossie into this version - it states that the spinners should be painted Tamiya XF-21 Sky with white band.
No I haven't read the Airfix Model World article.

Did they have a color picture?

Not colour, no. There was an article about the original with several b&w photos as well as the one about converting the model. I can scan and e-mail them if you like.

Send me a PM if you're interested.

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  • 2 years later...

Sorry to dig out an old thread, but I was about to ask exactly these questions! As a further question, would the overpainted stripes be a darker grey, or merely appear darker because of the paint underneath? And what about the wings? Can see no sign of a difference in colour underneath, but any chance of a similar discoloration on top? What colour would the nose be? And the fuel tanks, would the aluminium mentioned earlier likely to be accurate?

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As the basic colour of the aircraft is overall Medium Sea Grey, with Dark Green disruptive on the upper surface, and there appears to be no significant tone difference between the spinners and the underside. I suggest that the spinners are Medium Sea Grey too. Sky would show as distinctly lighter than the Medium Sea Grey, as it does on many a fighter in the Day Fighter scheme.

I don't know what colour has been used to overpaint the D-Day stripes, perhaps some kind of dark grey, but the underwing ones may not have been present at all, depending upon the delivery date. Or perhaps they were overpainted earlier, but a better-matching paint? Or are they visible on other photos?

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Can't see them on any other photos, but I can find a grand total of about four of this aircraft. Looking at some of the older schemes, a number seemed to have ocean grey spinners, and as there is a slight difference in their colour I'm beginning to wonder if they might be ocean grey rather than MSG. Might the nose possibly be bare plywood?

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Why Ocean Grey? This seems an unlikely choice, and should have much more of a difference unless very faded - as indeed OG did get with time, but this is a fairly new Mossie. I recall Ocean Grey being suggested for the single dark uppersurface colour on late CC schemes, when this idea was fairly new to modellers (decades back), but it was soon realised that the correct colour was Extra Dark Sea Grey. However the Tsetse aircraft seem to have retained the basic production option (the Night Fighter scheme). Although Ocean Grey was seen on those aircraft delivered to the 2TAF bomber units painted in Day Fighter Scheme, I don't recall seeing photos of any of these in Coastal.

The nose will certainly not be bare anything. Was it even plywood or a metal cap? Red primer perhaps.

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OG was a bit of a guess; have been going through all my mossie books trying to find any further clues and found a few of the older schemes like that, but forgot of course that the Tsetse was a CC aircraft. In trawling through it does appear that the nose is indeed plywood, and I do have vague recollections (though unable to find it again) of an aircraft with a red nose - the colour of the nose certainly looks like it might be a red, but it would be very odd indeed.

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