If you can obtain a copy of Wrecks and Relics that gives a full run down of all UK museums and their contents.

A new issue is due to be published in May/June this year. It doesn’t have just museums, but includes very small collections, even single airframes.
Edgar

I did photography, during the 60s & 70s, and the understanding, then, was that copyright remained with the originator/negative, not the print. However, if the work was commissioned (e.g. a wedding) although the copyright remained with the photographer, he could not use the resultant print, without obtaining permission from the originators of the commission.
Edgar

Diameters:- Dull Red 18″, White 24″, Dull blue 48″, Yellow 54″.
During the war, colours were simply given numbers “in H.M.G. Aircraft series,” for example Dull Red took over 11A from Matt Red, which seems to be a fine source of confusion. Matt blue was 12 & 12A, so Dull Blue might have become 12A, but I haven’t been able to find out, for sure. Yellow appears to have been 2; white remains a mystery. B.S. appears to be a post-war classification.

I had a look in the relevant ORBs, at Kew, today, but with no luck, whatsoever. It looks as though, rather than “belonging to” 198 Squadron, all of their Typhoons could have been taken over by 183, as 198 probably just relinquished them. According to the ORB, two days previously, 198 received word that they were to move to Manston, and they went by train; they didn’t fly. Neither Squadron noted the code letters, though, just the serial nos, which doesn’t help at all. Sorry.
Edgar

That’s all very interesting but you have not commented on other posters criticisms of the way the museum is run and how it is presented. It would be useful to hear your views on those aspects.

Unlikely, because my views are exceedingly subjective, since I visit museums for the purpose of research, not to be entertained, but I do realise that there’s a need to attract the casual visitor, not just the dyed-in-the-wool enthusiast. For that same reason, I don’t believe that I have the right to have a go at other posters’ views, since their requirements are likely to be completely different from mine.
I don’t like murky areas, but I don’t have to pay the electricity bill. I loathe this modern idea of hanging airframes in mid-air, since I can’t get at them (especially the cockpits,) and that applies to the Science Museum, IWM & Duxford, in equal measure, but I don’t have the job of shoe-horning the exhibits in.
There used to be a fairly easy availability, at Cosford, but try getting at some of the airframes, now. Spitfire cockpit? “Sorry, radioactive, you know.” I thought that one of the staff was going to have a heart attack, because I dared to lay my dirty hand on “his” aircraft. During a visit to Cosford, a few years ago, I noticed that a particular exhibit was missing an item, and knew that we had enough redundant spares, at work, to make one up. We sent it to the museum, and never received so much as a thank-you.
Edgar

Most pilots seem to agree that stiff collars and ties were ditched, in favour (if possible) of a silk scarf, to lessen the onset of “fighter pilot’s neck,” or soreness caused by continually swivelling the head to look behind. A mirror wasn’t (officially) fitted to the Spitfire until September 1940, although it seems that pilots tended to raid local car showrooms. Some pilots, whose flying dated from before the war, still flew in the original 1930s-vintage white overalls.
Edgar

Is there not a difference between stencil mats, and spray mats?, I can see the logic in using a mat to mark out the various edges, but not to spray up to, these were fighting machines, surely an inch here and there wouldn’t have mattered (unlike now).

It wasn’t the position of the wavy line that was important; it was that the transition between colours should be as clean a line as possible, with no rough over, or under, spray, since that roughness induced drag.
The instructions said “approximately” to the drawn pattern, and overlaid the drawings with 1’0″ squares to help with the design, but not to be followed slavishly. It was felt that a small amount of rough spray could be tolerated, hence the 1″ allowance between colours (and a whopping 2″ for the demarcation between upper and lower colours) when freehand painting was inevitable. The only precise measurements were at edges of main items, for instance the green, on the trailing edge of the starboard wing, started 24″ inboard of the aileron, and spread out for 31.25″ onto said aileron. On the port wing the measurements were 50″ and 42.75″.
Edgar

Steve, sorry if I came across as defensive; it’s a subject that has caused me hours of research, after an “expert,” on a modelling forum, went to great lengths to “prove” that the mats didn’t exist, even to saying that sprayers are “proud men,” and would have discarded the mats at the first opportunity. I pointed out that, in wartime Britain, anyone with that attitude would need to be pretty quick on their feet, to avoid the factory gate smashing into their backside as it closed behind them.
There’s an interesting exhibit, in the Tangmere museum; it’s a German liferaft, and the notice says that it’s only there because it’s made of neoprene, and there’s no matching RAF liferaft because they were made solely out of rubber, and have totally disintegrated. I’ve just retired from working on aircraft instruments, and orders for rubber O-rings have to be kept to a minimum, because CAA rules will only allow them to have a 5-year shelf-life; neoprene has no limiting life.
Although I’ve not been able to find it, there is supposed to be mention, in an old Ian Huntley article, of how Boulton Paul chamfered the edges of their mats, to allow a faint feathered edge. I have a letter, from the Westland historian, verifying their use of mats, and he says that it included the roundels. However, it would not surprise me if roundels were (or could have been) painted freehand; watch any signwriter in action, and you’ll marvel at the precision, with just a long paintbrush and a padded support stick. Draw a circle, using a pencil on a length of string, and he’d think it was his birthday, it’d be so easy.
It isn’t generally appreciated that paper was a fairly strategic material, during the war, and, with weekly collections, was continually being recycled (inspection of the brown shade, and fragility, of newspapers/magazines, by 1946, will give a good indication,) so paper masking was not an option. The popular cartoon of sheets of newspaper hanging in the toilet is not a myth; my aunt told of the relief (her word) when toilet paper finally reappeared post-war.
Edgar