Tail section being re-skinned on 25 May 1992. The restored forward keel section is hanging on the wall, the unrestored rear section of keel is above it on the right. Photo: C Low.

The above ‘pile of bits’ photo was taken in 1990 and shows many of the parts that later re-formed themselves in to R E Meltons Walrus I W2718. Looking back we must have been insane to have begun it but the hull was complete by 1995 together with the upper wing centre section and wing spars.

The project now need a new home.

You are not alone!

No I just see dirt (flies, grease, oil, mud) dirt. I prefer Spitfires to be clean, but you are entitled to your opinion (although it must be hard to find a mucky ‘patinated’ one with people like me and Ashley around).

Hi Yak11fan,

I will stick with Spitfires but I believe JJs scheme to be accurate (at least it has a bare metal fuselage like it should be as does Twilight Tear ):) .

Mustang afficionados please step forward.

I have often thought that the shade of Medium Sea Grey on the underside of AR501 is rather too dark (ie more than ‘slightly’ Eddie). Maybe it is because I only ever get to see her at twilight displays 😉 .

So long as they are as close as those three in the picture above, yes!

Hi Mark 12,

Excellent point, that photo is a very good illustation. Poor old PT462 seems to have resisted all attempts at getting the paint scheme right. The drawings for the current 253 Sqdn scheme were supplied by me (black and white line drawing) when the aircraft left for the States. Rather than send my precious copy of the book with the colour chips reffered to earlier I attached a note addressed to the new owner and invited him to contact me so that I could supply the chips to him directly (and therefore have a chance of getting them back).

Nothing further was heard until I saw a picture of the re-painted Spitfire in one of the magazines. The lines of the camouflage, roundel positions, sized etc were all spot on. But they used guessed paint colours! Grrrr!

If there is no specific evidence to prove that a particular aircraft was painted in a non standard scheme I would be critical of any departure from the standard colours, roundel sizes and proportions.

You would need a reason such as contemporary photographic evidence to depart from the scheme that the aircraft should have (and therefore probably was) painted in.

Markings that really did appear in many different forms were the squadron codes. There were standards laid down for these but as they were applied at squadron level there were many variations.