Lisa

Very sad news. One of the dwindling band of hardcore trailblazing aviation historians to whom we all owe a great deal.

RIP

Lee

Regardless of what colours may match to actual panels, the colour has always been Sky and readily available in the BS381 colour range as 210. The Firefly, Sea Fury and (some time ago now) the Sea Hawk were all painted with this.

One thing that will slightly affect the way the colour looks is the finish – gloss will make it look much darker than a matt or satin finish.

The ‘Sky’ colour on the earlier sea hawks is actually a BS colour called “Alpine”.

Never heard it called that before. It is still in the BS381C colour range as Sky – number 210.

I was involved in some of the research at the time WV908 was re-painted. The aim was to finish the aircraft as she was when she was with 806 Squadron. WV908 neve wore the earlier Extra Dark Sea Grey/Sky scheme with this unit; hence the change to the Extra Dark Sea Grey/White livery. A small inaccuracy in the RNHF scheme is that WV908 never wore the A tail code for HMS Albion as she was involved in a minor accident when she ran off the runway at RNAS Brawdy just prior to embarkation. A photo taken of this incident which may be seen in the squadron line book in tghe FAA Museum also shows that the “Royal Navy” title was in black. Sorry no scanner so I can’t post a picture.

Martin Hale

Martin

Interesting – must have missed that pic. I’ll dig it out next week and have a look. I might add here that I had nothing to do with the markings that WV908 is currently in, but I have set in place efforts to further improve their accuracy come the time she is refinished again (no timescale as yet, before anyone asks!).

The EDSG/Sky-S finish was used on Sea Hawks up until around 1957 when the scheme was changed, lowering the demarcation line to mid-fuselage and replacing the Sky with white (pure white, as on WV908 – not “almost white”). The same treatment was afforded to Sea Venoms. As for the ROYAL NAVY being in black, the titling was originally applied like that (as it was on Venoms and Scimitars), but it was changed to white c.1959/60. Looking at the history of WV908 I can only find an incident on 28 April 1958 which occurred at Lossiemouth. At that time the squadron’s parent ship was Eagle; they didn’t go to Albion until Feb 1960, ten months after moving base to Brawdy. She may not have carried the ‘A’ deck letter from the start, but that doesn’t mean to say she didn’t later on as so often was the case. WV908 had indeed been originally painted in the spurious early 806 NAS scheme earlier in her RNHF (and Culdrose before 1982) career.

As for future schemes, personally I’d love to see a Suez scheme represented. I’m also putting together, in slow time, all of the service stencilling and component serial number stencils, a large part of the former were left out and none of the latter were reproduced at all.

Lee

As I say, if it was me I’d still rather try the rags soaked in water method first. You’ve got nothing to lose, other than a few hours waiting for the water to soak in. If the panels are in the grey paint as applied at Fleetlands (high possibility considering it is Scout stuff) then it does work. If it doesn’t, then obviously resort to meths.

Unfortunately it’s out of RNHF’s hands at the moment, but she is still penned in to attend and will do so if at all possible.

Hi

Does anyone now of a supplier for accurate RAF serial decals, or what font they are (standard 8 inch high fuselage type) ?

We have painted the tail code on our JP XS186, but time limitations with electrical / hydraulic work ongoing means we have to look at what other options are out there.
Our local graphics company can’t find the font ?

Paul
XS186 CREW

Paul

Send me a PM – I’m sure I can help.

Regards

Lee