When AR213 had its first-ever complete rebuild, I was given access to some of the fuselage panels, which had been removed, and replaced. Cleaning off years of dirty “weathering” revealed a green which exactly matched a Humbrol colour chip, no.90 “Beige green,” not the always-quoted 78.
Further investigation showed that, when fleetingly owned by Palitoy, Airfix’s 1/24 Spitfire I was issued, with instructions to paint the cockpit interior in 90. Unfortunately (like most of the modelling fraternity, since Airfix never actually bothered to indicate what 90 was for,) when Hornby took over the company, they thought that 90 was supposed to be Sky, and altered the formula to match it.
When PSL published their book, on the Airfix kit, the authors included a recommendation to use 1 Eau-de-Nil plus a “slight touch” (how much is that?) of 38 Lime, which came nowhere near 78.
It would be wonderful, now that the IWM’s airframes are down from their “eyrie,” and stored at Duxford, if someone could gain access to the Spitfire, and check it out, since the story is that it was this airframe that Messrs Cross and Scarborough used, as it had just been brought down for cleaning, at just the right time.
As an extra point to ponder, in a pair of books, on cockpit interiors, by Hiroshi Seo, published in 1980, there’s a photo of the Science Museum’s S6B cockpit, and it, too, is remarkably close to Humbrol’s original 90.
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