Lion Rock
April 24, 2018 at 7:05 pm

Chipmunk Colours – Grey or Silver

I was looking at a painting I think by Chris French of a Chipmunk (WP871 ?) in what looked like Cranwell light blue bands on the wings and fuselage. The more I looked at the painting the more I uncertain I became as to whether the main colour was silver or grey? Also the bands were a lighter blue than roundel blue. Does anyone know what the colour specs actually were please.

Many thanks

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By: Lion Rock - 25th April 2018 at 19:19

Sky Dancer – many thanks much appreciated

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By: Sky Dancer - 24th April 2018 at 23:41

Hi there,

This painting seems to be of G-ATHD/WP971 as it looks now.

This Chippie is painted silver (which would have been correct for the 1950’s). Airframe would have been silver, the bands would have been “Cambridge Blue” – I’m afraid I don’t know the British Standard BS381 code for this.

There was some debate both here and on PPRuNe about Chipmunk colours a while ago.

Here is the link to a PPRuNe debate:-

https://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/491287-paint-scheme-dhc-1-chipmunk-3.html

It should have some colour photo’s of G-ATHD towards the end of the thread.

Here is a link to a thread here:-

https://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?135967-A-really-odd-RAF-Chipmunk

Unfortunately, the “Curse of Photobucket” has struck.

The thread ” A really odd RAF Chipmunk” listed here was also being debated on PPRuNe, and I think it was also on Britmodeller (a modelling site)

There was definitely some debate on one of these three Forums concerning the markings shown on G-ATHD/WP971 – with at least one poster stating that while the fuselage band was blue, the wings bands should have been yellow. IIRC, it was stated by someone that the wing bands of RAF College aircraft were never blue, until someone produced a photo of an RAFC Kirby Cadet with blue wing bands….. (think it might have been on here actually?)

There was also some debate concerning a film taken at Cranwell in the 1950’s which appeared to suggest that the wing bands were blue too, but I’m not certain of this.

Of course, the painting by Chris French may be intended to show how G-ATHD looks now, rather than being a historically accurate scheme. I think the white canopy frame only came into use with the Light Aircraft Grey/Dayglo scheme rather than the silver scheme.

Hope that helps,
SD