RAF/SAAF P-40 collour?

[Guest]

Can someone please tell me what the collour was of the pannel just aft the cockpit beneath the halfround glazing was on a RAF P-40c? Would it have been interior green like the rest of the cockpit or would it have been the base collour of the cammo ie. Mid stone or dark earth???

I see the desert cammo as mid stone/dark earth and azure bottom but for the other scheeme it was dark earth/dark green with "BS Azure" . what was BS Azure?

It is a little 1/48 Academy P-40 c I will do in SAAF OTU collours. So far I like the way the kit is going together.

Theuns

[stona]

I don't know what BS Azure is. The standard colour for the underside of the second scheme would be Sky or the DuPont equivalent,approved by the British. The British were paying for these aircraft and the Air Ministry men (in the US) would have rejected anything that did not conform to their (ie British) specifications. It is of course possible that the aircraft you mention were painted elsewhere,in theatre. If you can give me a time and or unit as well as a place I may be able to find out.

Terry McGrady who is an expert on the P-40,particularly the Aussie ones,has told me that that panel,behind the cockpit under the glazing, was invariably painted in the camouflage colour. The plexi-glass was easily removed for a respray,much simpler than masking it off. Being under the glazing it did weather differently so it might have a slightly different appearance.

The only area that was masked when these aircraft were resprayed was the serial number so these (on desert aircraft) often appear in a little dark green box (port side) and a green/dark earth box on the other.This assuming the most prevalent "B" scheme camouflage.

Cheers

Steve

Edit: I think I should clarify that Curtiss delivered aircraft in the TLS (temperate land scheme) of Dark Green/Dark Earth over Sky in Dupont equivalents. The desert aircraft were resprayed by the British. Later on the aircraft were delivered in Olive drab over Neutral Grey.

2nd edit: The change to OD/NG occurred sometime during the K series production. We called the K series a Kittyhawk III. It appears aircraft delivered to the USAAF in the med. came in desert camo but,again according to Terry,there is no evidence that this was the case for British/Commonwealth aircraft. They just kept respraying them!

[Guest]

Thanx mate. I am doing the planeof 2 OTU in SA waterkloof 1944. What collour was "sky" almost azure?

Theuns

[Guest]

I have heard you guys quite often requesting colour information. As you know i use a 2 part paint ( Epoxy ) made by Klas Kote. I know it is of no use for you guys but the have a great reference to color chips, i cant load it because it is a PDF file but if anyone would like a copy i would be happy to mail it to you. Just drop me a PM.

This is what it covers.

Standard Colours

Military Colours

1939 - 1945

- U.S Navy / Marines

- U.S. Army Air Corps

- Imperial Japanese Army & Navy Air Forces

- British Royal Air Force

- German Luftwaffe

- Italian Air Force

- Russian, Turkey, Romanian & Hugary

- U.S. 1946 to Present



Andy

[stona]

Sky was the same colour as the earlier camotint. There is much debate about what was initially applied by confused RAF erks but the colour Sky was soon formalised. Several manufacturers do a version,I like the Xtracrylix one. It is best described as a greenish blue.

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

Thanx lads.

It seems the SAAF had their hands full when trying to get a standard collour. They had planes from the RAF in brown/green aswell as mid stone/brown, and just to make things interesting, they had a few USAAF planes in overall Olive drab top surface!

Some of the planes in the same unit even had different roundals on the bottom of the wings, these would gradually be corrected as the craft went in for overhauls.

I have desided to go with the mid stone/dark brown and azure as to not get to far confused LOL

Theuns