Black & White Underwing Paint?

I was describing the black and white scheme used until 7th June 1940. The photograph dates from later when only the port wing was painted black. See my second post.

There was some variation in what was the port wing.

There are some post on Britmodeller regarding 1 squadron, and French blue undersides, which are interesting, and will link /quote later.

The photo quotes is very famous, often captioned as Crete 1941 IIRC, but what is not noted is that the Black/Sky boundary is the exact point the outer wing joins the centre section, so this could be a replacement wing from a black winged aircraft, rather than a non standard black/sky boundary.
It is also the only example I have seen of the colour change occurring in this place.

There is a famous photo of a VVS [Soviet] Hurricane showing a fuselage in temperate land scheme [Dark Green/Dark Earth/Sky] with the wing replaced with a Day Fighter Scheme one[Dark Green/Ocean Grey/Medium Sea grey]
picture at top of this thread
http://sovietwarplanes.com/board/index.php?topic=1441.0

Hope of interest
Troy

Looks like dirty white to me.

It wasn’t. But it may have discoloured.

Thanks for the info. I’ve re-uploaded the photo as an attachment to see if that lets antoni view it.

It most definitely isn’t white but I’m not sure how to describe it – the phrase “a very pale duck-egg green” comes to mind but I’m not sure if that is a genuine colour name or if I’ve just imagined it. 🙂 Definitely not white though.

PP

It seems that all computors will show attached pictures (ie uploaded directly to forum), but only some will show linked pictures (from photo host sites).

Is it possible that the white is a very light ‘sky’?

No, I can see it.

I am very familiar with that replica since I acquired it for the museum from its builder some good ten or fifteen years ago.

You say that the “white” half isn’t white? Really? I’m sure it was back then. And it looks quite white in your picture, though hard to tell!

Just a red cross. Is its size greater than the forum limit?

Thanks for the very informative answer. I wonder, though, why you can’t see the photo. Anyone else not see it?
PP

Cannot see the picture but is sounds very iffy. Depends upon what period it represents. In France there was no use for the black and white scheme and to make British aircraft look like French aircraft the undersides of Hurricanes were painted over with an unknown light blue colour. Squadron codes were painted over and the rudder painted with red,white and blue stripes.

L1697 appears in several publications depicted in this French look with a red cap on the spinner and still with squadron codes. On Target Profile 12 Hawker Hurricane in RAF and Commonwealth Service shows more subtle details. The squadron codes are painted over but can still been seen as a faint shadow. The undersides are painted over with a light blue colour with the black side slightly darker. The serial number is also painted out. The spinner cap is Dark Earth which is normal for early Hurricanes with the two-blade Watts propeller. The reference given is private sources. The caption states that the rear fuselage and nose undersides were originally Aluminium and the undersides of the tailplanes also. However, there is a photograph of L1697 in October 1939 that clearly shows the undersides of the nose to be 50/50 black and white. Another photograph taken from the starboard side also shows the undercarriage door on that side as being white. There are squadron codes but the serial is painted out. Red, White and Blue stripes on the rudder.

Fascinating stuff. Perhaps I can make use of the expertise here to answer a question about the replica Hurricane at the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum.

It’s said to represent the Hurricane I L1679 which served with No. 1 Squadron from early 1939 until it was destroyed in France in May 1940. As you can see from the photo below (taken yesterday) it has the 50:50 scheme described in earlier posts. The port side is the expected black but the starboard side is most definitely not white.

Is this a known variation or, perhaps, just an error?

PP

There are indeed photographs of Lysanders with these markings including a couple of V9576 of 309 Squadron. During December 1941 309 Squadron’s A Flight took part in Operation Scorch operating from Ipswich and B Flight in Operation Stag operating from Inverness, both anti-invasion exercises. The same type of identification markings were used for Operation Scorch and so presumably for Operation Stag. As the photographs were obviously taken in winter they would seem they were taken during one those operations. 309 Squadron also took part in the major Rabbit and Hare exercises of Scottish Command during the second half of August 1941. I do not known if any special markings were used for those. There may have been other similar exercise but there is little mention of the.

Hurricanes also had the special markings but so far I have not come across any photographs that show them.

Here is something that you should find interesting. Army (Southern) Command held an anti-invasion exercise over six days starting 30th June 1941 in which the army co-operation squadrons took part. Special markings were devised so that troops could tell which were enemy and which were friendly fighters. 403 Squadron had recently transferred its Tomhawks to 26 Squadron. 26 Squadron hastily replaced the 403 Squadron codes with their own. It was decided that 26 Squadron would provide both enemy and friendly fighters for the exercise. Each aircraft would have the individual letter painted in black beneath the starboard wing inboard of the roundel and friendly aircraft would also have the port wing painted black underneath. Aircraft ‘D’ was coded ‘M’ with 403 Squadron and still retains the letter M in black under the nose.

Hi
There are also photos of lysanders with the same markings.
cheers
Jerry

That is fantastic news, keeping my fingers crossed for the weather!
Looking forward to pics and report!:)

Hi Tim

I’ll be there Tuesday…looking forward to it.

Pagen, the owner of a TR9 has made a kind offer to Tim to climb aboard his old warhorse and charge around the skies again…as Tim says, weather dependant.

Fingers crossed for blue skies at Oxford next week!

This is the sort of thing that makes me feel very honoured to be involved in historic aviation:)

Hi Tim

Hopefully I’ll be able to take some photos next Wednesday and post them here to bring this up to date! watch this space…

Looking forward to it

D

Under-wing livery for WWII fighters in Northern Europe was complicated.

Nothing in my view surpasses James Goulding’s work in this field and I refer to his ‘Camouflage & Markings -Supermarine Spitfire’ with regularity. It originally cost six shillings and can often comes up on ebay.

Mark

It would appear that BOTH schemes are evident in Tim’s first picture. The middle aircraft has the 50:50 split (less Port T.e. fairings…)…

As I pointed out in my post above, there were different interpretations of painting the port wing black. Sometimes half the aircraft was painted black leaving the other half Sky. Sometimes part of the fuselage was also painted black but other parts were not. Sometimes the wing was painted black up to the centre of the fuselage and sometimes, on Hurricanes, only the outer part of the wing was painted black up to the undercarriage.

Very concise, thanks Antoni.
So was the ‘white’ actually the very light linen (?) grey colour originally used?
Interesting pic posted by Tangmere as it seems to show a mixture of black/white halves and Sky!
Like many paint and finish subjects it seems to have many variables.

I’m going to sound dumb here, and apologies for the questions, but I’m assuming there was a black & white halves scheme, and then a black port wing & sky scheme?

Yes.

Cotteswold/tim, Hello! Nice to ‘meet’ you!

Fantastic photos, you took them??? If you don’t mind me asking, how did you find yourself in such a position? Were you a pilot during the war? Or RAF photographer?

Amazing photos, whatever the case.

Sorry if you’ve answered these questions before, i haven’t been around long.