Does anyone have any photos of the S****hawk, the Kinloss Nimrod which was resprayed the wrong colour due to a paint code mixup, and had to go around with a surreal chocolate brown scheme until her next major?
It went back into the hangar only weeks after it was painted and reappeared in the correct hemp finish. It had various bits “artwork” applied ranging from Elsan Air and a dayglo cut out toilet on the fin to Coconut Airways along the fuselage.
I have several photos of it, including with both Coconut Airways and ‘Chameleon Air’ after she was painted in the chosen ‘hemp’ scheme, however they are from a private collection and I don’t have the copyright to post them here. It first in ‘chocolate’ appeared in February 1977, and was repainted by June 1977.
Incidentally, there is another version of the story as to why she was painted in that colour. XV246 was the first aircraft painted in the ‘brown’ scheme, and the report is that she was painted in Dark Earth, but that colour was found to be too dark for the desired aim (To disguise aircraft on the concrete) so the colour that came to be known as ‘Hemp’ (Now Camouflage Beige in BS381C) was adopted instead. This version of events came from a respected researcher.
It should be noted that the colour demarcation on XV246, even when back in Hemp, was different from the rest of the fleet.
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