minutes later and an image taken
on black-and-white fi lm arrived
and the contrast between the
colours was quite stark. In this
instance the monochrome picture
told a clearer story than its colour
counterpart.
From the day job I’ve had
a couple of instances of head
scratching that prompted me to
open the conservation up to a
wider audience via social media.
One was a shot of some No.
Squadron Defi ants in formation
with a number of marking
variations, including an aircraft
coded PS-U which had a larger
roundel with a thinner yellow ring
and a paler blue on the fi n-fl ash.
This aircraft alone would be a
point of curiosity, but the others
in the line-up also displayed tonal
oddities, least not PS-Z which
had a distinctly paler blue to the
fuselage type A1 roundel. Throw
into the mix that PS-V appeared
to have a slightly paler blue to
the upperwing type B roundels
and you have a series of talking
points in just one shot that mere
photographic fi lters and fi lm types
don’t explain. With regard to those
odd blues, the general thinking is
that some of the aircraft may have
been painted in a variant of sorts
that gets described as “aircraft
blue” (close to modern day BS
108) or “French blue” (akin to
BS381 166). Maybe. No one
really knows and so it’s a matter
of informed guesswork.
The problem for anyone
wishing to reproduce this in a
material form like artwork for a
magazine or decal sheet then
has to make a decision based on
the best available information/
informed guesswork, and run with
it whereas in the fl uid environment
of forums and social media
pages, opinions can shift as new
information becomes available.
Kit manufacturers and publishers
then get roasted because they
took a fork in the road regarding
a contentious point of colour due
to the small matter of deadlines
and actually having to make a
decision, while their critics have
the luxury of always appearing
to be correct, a situation best
summed up by a former British
politician who described a
colleague as someone who
“waits to see the way the crowd is
running and then dashes in front
and says, ‘follow me’.”
Whereas RAF aircraft tended to
be (moderately) well regulated by
the Air Ministry orders of the time
to the point that certain things
like roundels indicate a particular
period –– thus allowing amodicum of probability regarding
camoufl age colours –– even
colour photos can produce bun
fi ghts that make a chimp’s tea
party seem like an orderly garden
party at Buckingham Palace.
Ted Hooton’s ‘Spitfi re Special’
book features a colour photo of
AD233, a Mk.Vb coded FZ-D.
This has been the topic of many
an online spat because no one
can quite agree on what colours
they are seeing. Strictly speaking
the presence of a sky band would
indicate that this is in the later
Day Fighter Scheme of Dark
Green and Ocean Grey with
Medium Sea Grey undersides,
the A1 roundels are an unusual
but not uncommon feature during
the crossover period to the C/
C1 types. But the problem is
that people see what should be
Dark Green as anything from
Dark Earth to Dark Slate Grey,
and the (presumably) Ocean
Grey element as a mixed-grey
of sorts to Extra Dark Sea Grey
and even Dark Green! Such has
become to notoriety of AD
that the mere mention of it can
have people either rushing for the
exits or rolling up their sleeves for
some fi sticuffs while the rest grab
popcorn and look on.
Similarly, there’s a colour photo
of some early No.601 Squadron
Hurricanes parked up with an
Armstrong Whitworth Ensign in
the background. All appear to be
painted in Dark Green and Dark
Earth uppers but... the Hurricanes
are distinctly lighter, whilst the
Ensign is darker. This can’t be
put down to anomalies of light or
shadow as all are in the full sun.
It’s a genuinely puzzling photo
that has generated any number of
theories including the Hurricanes
perhaps being incorrectly painted
in Light Earth which was used in
counter-shadow camoufl age on
biplanes like the Gladiator.
Trying to decipher Luftwaffe
RLM colours from black and
white images is perhaps even
more fraught with uncertainty
and open to interpretation. Here,
there is some really impressive
and detailed work that goes
into matching factories to dates,
units and airfi elds to arrive at
what are likely combinations,
but this can often still be down
to guesswork rather than hard
science, especially towards the
end of World War Two, where
any number of ad-hoc schemes
and fi eld-applied colours were
apparently in use. Plus, we also
face the problem of, without
having certain colours to act as
markers to indicate fi lm stocksor fi lters, what we think we are
seeing may not be so.
Perhaps there’s something to
be said for the relative simplicity
of the USAAF for whom things
were either Olive Drab and
Neutral Grey, or stripped back
to Natural Metal. But here we
also come across photographs
that generate heated debate,
least not the very famous ‘Lou
IV’, a P-51D of the 375th Fighter
Squadron. This has long been
thought to have been painted
in dark blue uppers and is often
depicted as such, and there are
still proponents of this scheme
who put forward compelling
explanations as to why it may
have been fi nished as such,
but then I see the colour photos
and my fi rst thought is that it’s
a green, possibly a Dark Green
from British stocks given they
were based in the UK. Tricky!
It’s notable that both the recent
Revell 1:32 and Airfi x 1:48 P-51D
kits that feature Lou IV have both
arrived at the same interpretation
of a mix of Olive Drab and RAF
Dark Green, not blue.
Still with P-51Ds there is Flight
Lieutenant Arthur “Joe” Doley’s
Mustang IV KM272 “Dooleybird”,
brought to life so vividly by Roy
Huxley’s box art for the ironic
1:72 Matchbox kit. With only
black-and-white photos to work
from initial thoughts were that
KM272 was fi nished with a blue
cowl and canopy and this is
largely how it has been depicted
down the years, but more recent
researches suggest this might
have been yellow and this is the
course Airfi x took with their recent
1:48 Mustang IV which features
an oddly-reminiscent box art
depicting ‘Dooleybird’ in a wheels-
up take-off...
There is then the situation
where no photos exist whatsoever
and a scheme has to be
pieced together using available
knowledge and probable
likelihood. It can be a thankless
task because people will often
have their own entrenched
opinions on some subjects, in
fact I’m minded of a kit a few
years ago where someone was
convinced a colour scheme in a
kit was quite wrong based on their
own research that subsequently
amounted to a few hours on
Wikipedia (?) and a incorrectly
captioned photograph. And while
modern day communications have
allowed the sharing of information
to become easier thus expanding
out knowledge base, it can lead
to everyone thinking they’re an
expert.I’ve noticed in recent times
that a few kit companies have
taken the savvy move of including
research notes in their kits to
acknowledge that some colour
schemes are slightly contentious,
it’s a wise decision as it not
only shows they have done
their research - and some kit
manufacturers often carry out
more through research than
aftermarket companies do - but it
also heads off the inevitable email
or phone call from someone who
thinks they’ve found an error.
Ultimately though the fi nal
interpretation comes down to
the individual modeller and if
they decide whether something
is yellow rather than blue, blue
rather than green etc., then
that’s their prerogative and that
comes back to my belief that only
opinion on any model is the one
of the person building it and the
satisfaction derived therein.
No grey areas there - that really
is black-and-white. ■Issue 170 - http://www.modelairplaneinternational.com 7In the beginning there was the Usenet bulletin board. And within fi ve minutes of its creation people were arguing...
Jonathan Mock looks at the thorny question of interpreting old photos.
COMMENT 170.indd 3 06/08/2019 11: