Col Pays P40 – The photos are here!!!!!!

For Setter

Well as it looks like this thread has come to a natural end, you can gather the info posted here and pass it on to Col Pay’s team. Any questions about various points you can post them here and I will try to answer.

Steve

Setter – I am off up the coast this afternoon to spend Christmas at my father’s place. As there is no internet access at his place, I won’t be able to respond to any points on this post till I get back on 02 Jan.

Will contact you if necessary after I get back. BTW thanks for posting the photos of the restoration in the first place as I had been waiting for photos of this one to appear somewhere.

Steve

TOOOO GOOOOD. What a Hawk and still more coming along Too

First Thank’s so very much for the shot’s Setter(John) 🙂 , She look’s Great for an old bird to me matey 😎 .

In my model day’s with them all hanging from the roof of my bedroom, I gave up being too nit picky about sceme’s for the underside’s and settled for Duck egg blue( 😮 eek,but I liked it :p ).

Great thread Guy’s 😀 , quiet a history trip and debate, Very interesting 😎 .

And Daz if you are still around mate 😉 , Oz sure is no patch work quilt :p .

Xmas Cheerio’s to all 😀 , Tally :dev2: Ho! :dev2: Ho! :dev2: Ho! Phil :diablo: .

Yes I have seen that one, it was supplied to me along with the 2 photos that I posted of ET953 by Richard Hourigan.

Be warned – THIS IS NOT A SHOT OF THE NOSE ART OF ET953.

There are differences in the detail design of the two, plus differences in the exact position of the artwork on the nose.

I have photos of the artwork on the noses of 4-5 P-40Es flown by Bobby Gibbes. The nose art is not identical on them, even though there was supposedly a stencil in existence at the time.

Setter – Another point with the restoration, the fin flash is incorrect being too tall. It should be the standard 27″ x 24″ fin flash of the period. Needs to be altered to be historically correct.

Steve

another shot from the old cmp site:

Martin

Hi Steve

That is great about the stencils – It looks a bit naked without all the detail but that comes with time on any restoration as the finishing touches get applied it just gets even better. Small issues apart it is a real sight to see in the flesh so as to speak – I have some video if you would like – only 7 minutes but it does show it off well.

Regards
John P

The two photos from the Wheeler collection posted above are both of P-40F (Kittyhawk Mk.II) models and have no significance to the ET953 situation except to point out that the colour used for 3 Sqn code letters was almost always White in the Kittyhawk/ Mustang eras.

The use of the LMB codes in the lineup photos showing ET953 is almost unique (and illustrates something that must have been very short lived). BTW the Wheeler photos were first posted on the OLD-CMP.net website which is still in existance

Richard Hourigan is supplying details of the required stencilling to the Col Pay organisation to be applied to the restoration so that is already being attended to.

Steve

Hi all

Mk V

A lot to be done yet – wheel covers – stencils -serials etc but that is why it is important we give good feedback to be of help in finishing it off as accurately as possible.

Martin

Great shots but again more confusing – I will clean them up a bit and have a look today.

Regards
and thanks very much
John P

Fascinating thread indeed !

Don’t know whether they are of help but here are two photographs to add:

taken by R.N. Wheeler, a pilot with 3 Squadron, RAAF

Regards
Martin / Swiss Mustangs

Just a small point: The ‘serial’ also needs to be added (perhaps they had just not got round to that yet).

Steve

Taking Notes!!!!! More like a bloody 3 volume book series the way we are going – still all of this is really great stuff and brings out the best in these type of forums. I think the best thing to do is for me, (once we have exhausted our coments) to distil all the coments into a sort of chronology/ specification and post it in draft for final coments then talk to Col about it and give him our ideas for finishing the aircraft off.

Regards
JohnP

Photo with Bobby Gibbes on tail

The photo above showing Bobby Gibbes sitting on the tail of his machine shows a later airframe than ET953. That one is CV-V FR305 which followed directly after ET953 as it’s successor (as far as the CV-V code went) from 4th Oct 42 onwards.

FR305 (and a couple of other Mk.IIIs) were acquired by 3 Sqn RAAF by nefarious means as they were not supposed to have that Mark (there is a little bit about this on P.171 and 172 of Russel Brown’s book ‘Desert Warriors’).

I’m glad you brought this up as reference to P.163 of ‘Desert Warriors’ shows that the fin flash on the 1st machine in the line-up at the time that the 15 Sep photos were taken (CV-J), has the earlier style that was in use with ‘A1’ type fuselage roundels. This shows how the style of national markings can be inconsistent on the same airframe.

Hopefully Setter is taking notes of all this and can pass it on to the restoration team.

Steve

Mark12

Ah yes but this airframe was not delivered to 3 Sqn RAAF till circa 21 Aug 1942 ( date it first appears in the ORB ) so the photo is taken after that date, not prior to May 1942.

There are other photos of this airframe that have been published showing that it did carry this mish mash of roundels at the time of the line up photo that was published earlier.

That was 1 of 5 RAF Official photos of that line up in the IWM collection that were taken by a RAF photographer on 15 Sep 1942. I have original copies of them somewhere around here but cannot locate them at the moment to post better copies.

Steve

Steve,

It would certainly be nice to see the mish-mash images.

The May 1942 date of course only refers to the promulgation of the order. It was implemented as and when opportune after that date.

Here are a couple of shots from the said book, showing the early roundels in combination on another RAAF Kittyhawk unit, 450 Squadron, in the same theatre.

Also a shot of Bobby Gibbes on what may be a different P-40 but it does give an indication of light coloured codes and their thickness.

Mark

Mark12

Ah yes but this airframe was not delivered to 3 Sqn RAAF till circa 21 Aug 1942 ( date it first appears in the ORB ) so the photo is taken after that date, not prior to May 1942.

There are other photos of this airframe that have been published showing that it did carry this mish mash of roundels at the time of the line up photo that was published earlier.

That was 1 of 5 RAF Official photos of that line up in the IWM collection that were taken by a RAF photographer on 15 Sep 1942. I have original copies of them somewhere around here but cannot locate them at the moment to post better copies.

Steve

Pick and mix

Hornet 103,

With respect, the shot showing the underwing roundel does not confirm unless it shows the accompanying fuselage roundel. I would suggest that the fuselage roundel in this shot will most probably be A.1 type with the larger yellow outer. I believe the change in styles was initiated in May 1942.

A bit of ‘pick and mix’ going on here I suspect with colours and roundels.

It looks to me that come the date of the official roundel change, the opportunity was taken to improve the underside colour, in the light of operations and re-colour or apply the codes.

That line up shot in the later roundels does have the look of all the aircraft being consistent with a recent repaint, and wait for it Voy Tech, “pre-faded”.

Mark

Hi Steve

Thanks for posting the shots – they help a fair bit – the roundel under the wing is the correct configuration but seems a little bit smaller than the original and the centre is a bit smaller too – no great problem there .

Wheels- The machine has only just flown so I guess there is plenty of time to put the discs on or even change the wheels.

Obviously the aircraft will now undergo a detail with serials etc added so I expect we will see all of these details attended to then.

The gloss tends to fade and dull with time so I don’t worry too much over that.

All in all it isn’t a bad job as it turns out and as the actual aircraft changed a bit during service there appears to be a bit of scope for variation here anyway.

Thanks Steve and Richard

Regards
John P

Second original ET953 photo

This second photo is a closeup of the nose art. In my opinion the art work on the restoration is slightly too large and positioned a little too far forward. The Roo’s tail should just about touch the panel line and the bottom of the drawing is further above the under surface camo demarcation line (the fact that the drawing on the restoration is a bit too large causes it to be almost down on that line).

A couple of points that John brought up – obviously I am aware that they cannot change the windscreen that easily, I was just pointing out the historical discrepancy.

The wheels – I would have thought they would put flat plates over the hubs like on the original Kittyhawks to disguise their non p-40 origins.

The glossy colour scheme – yes not authentic but it wears much better like that. Something we will probably have to put up with.

Steve Mackenzie

CV-V ET953 photos of original airframe

OK let’s see if I can figure out how to attach photos on this Forum. About 10 days ago amongst a batch of photos that I received from Richard Hourigan (the well known Aussie Historian and Warbird owner) were a couple of original photos of ET953 that I had not seen before.

They are the photos I referred to in my earlier posting. I spoke to Richard earlier tonight and he has said there is no problem in posting them here. First the overall shot of CV-V showing the style of underwing roundel clearly and the fact that the ‘V’ of the codes is White at this stage, not Blue as it was later.

The under surface colour is indeterminate here. It could be Light Mediterranean Blue as Blue can show fairly light on some film/ filter types or it may be something else. Tomahawks were delivered to the RAF with Sky Gray under surfaces and it is possible that some of the earlier Kittyhawks had the same predating the use of LMB or Azure Blue

Steve Mackenzie

Interesting and constructive points have been made. Despite these I am still very unsure about the validity of the underwing roundels (which someone, I believe correctly, pointed out to be post-war ‘Type D’s’) and the ‘bright’ roundel colours, not to mention the ‘curvy’ and thin code letters. Well done for getting the fuselage roundels in proportion though.

Great pics, great looking plane 🙂 Love the kangaroo kicking some ass 😀