The other aspect is that this building is about the people, not about the planes. They are there to tell the people’s story, they do not tell their story in this instance. That is the objective and as such perhaps asks the viewer to bring a different perspective to the collection and how they are ‘used’.

A fact that can be applied to the IWM as a whole.

As for the collecting policy at Iwm -we have some decidedly odd decisions made there in the past and I still cannot understand the cost and effort made to get an F-86 over here only for it to end up sitting outside at Coventry.

Someone told me (and I can’t remember who) that they were rather unimpressed with that F-86, as it ‘was not a very good example’ and were actively looking for another when the recession hit

The question of ‘duplicates’ depends entirely on the context of the diaplay – in the case of the Phantom, the J (as much as I dislike the fact) is painted in USN colours and represents the USN involvement in both the Cold War and the Vietnam conflict. The FGR2 represents the RAF at the height of the Cold War.
So unless they are being displayed alongside each other, then whilst they may be similar airframes, they are displayed and represent entirely different things.

The other aspect of ‘duplication’ within the IWM collection is that for most visitors, the three sites (Lambeth, Duxford and Manchester) are three separate museums, so there is, for example, no problem in having a P-51D at both Duxford and Lambeth.

For a curator, that may seem like ‘duplication in the colection’ but to visitors?

Edgar,

Eric Brown is also listed as having flown Yak-11, Mig 15 and Mil 1,2 and 4 – but I don’t think any of his books say where.

The late father of a friend once told me he thought there was a Mig retrieved after Suez.

Erik,

Eric Brown flew the Soviet types in occupied Germany at the end of the War, as you say on an informal basis – some of his books mention them (He also flew several unusal German types in the same senario, for example the Bv141)

For example, in his book ‘Testing for Combat’ (Airlife 1994) He described flying the La-7 (and mentioned the Il-2) in June 1945. He also talks of flying ‘9 contemporary Russian frontline aircraft’.

As to how he was able to, he introduces this chapter by saying “There was a short spell immediately after the Second World War when Allied test pilots like myself could eneter the Russian zone of occupation and be heartily welcomed, particularly if you were British..(due to the British having special status with Russians for sending aircraft to Russia).….and this benevolence could even be stretched to being allowed to fly the odd aircraft with the red star on the side.”

The italics are my summation, but the rest is his text.

Thanks for sharing those Tony.

There are several colour photos of Gnats in operational service in Light Aircraft Grey and Dayglo (Including one such aircraft flying as ‘Red One’) – in B+W, the difference between aluminium and LAG is difficult to spot (which is not surprising when you consider why LAG was chosen)

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/8/8/1/0216188.jpg

What’s interesting in that shot is how orange the dayglo is, compared to the shot of XS105 Pagen posted – compare to the Signal Red on the other Gnats and the JP in the background of XS105. Also, the Scotchcal tape on the (LAG) Provost – I have a sample of that, and the colour is reproduced accurately there.

Many late colour photos show the dayglo as that reddish shade, but here is a comment from another board:

Regarding the shades of dayglo, I took a colour slide of XP530 at Little Rissington in early April 1963 when it was about a week old; it was so new they hadn’t got round to applying the CFS badge on the nose. Perhaps of more interest is a clear difference between the darker reddy shade of dayglo on this production T.1 aircraft and that on pre-production T.185D, XM704, the tailfin of which can be seen behind it. Also of note is that serial numbers were painted directly onto the dayglo paint on the rear fuselage of production Gnats whereas it was applied within a silver box on the pre-production machines, at least until their first repaint.

I

To (hopefully) bring the discussion of reds to a close, at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter what the name used is….it’s the BS381C tint reference number which is the important bit to get right. Post-war roundel reds should be BS381C-538.

The difference is that British Standards changed the name of colour 538 from Post Office Red to Cherry Red at one point (Might have been the 80s revision, if not earlier)