This hoary one comes up regularly, in the modelling world, with modern “experts” queueing up to say it never happened. We’ve made it a “sticky” subject on the Britmodeller website, and, so far, we’ve found people who used them, or saw them being used, in fact a friend saw the method still in use on Hunters, post-war. Remember that, during the war, with dispersed manufacturing, it was common for major parts to be made, then transported to the assembly site. Having to repaint items, because the pattern didn’t match, would have been a total nuisance. In the old series “Camouflage & Markings” are several works drawings, with positions of the edges of the pattern marked precisely to fractions of an inch, hardly likely if there was no need for conformity. One man, that I chat to regularly, used the mats in a factory, and also did freehand spraying in a repair unit. He described the mats as a coarse, but flexible, material (which sounds to me like rubberised horsehair,) and said that, when spraying freehand, the amount of overspray had to be 1″ maximum. We met some ex-Hawker employees, a few years ago, who described how they painted Hurricanes brown, then laid the mats on them, and sprayed the green. “When we had to do the “shadow” scheme, we just flipped the mats over, and used the other side.” said one. One question always being thrown at me, is “Why are there none left?” Well, rubber perishes, and, after 50+ years, there’d only be dust left, by now, and what factory management is going to hang on to paint-soaked lumps of rubberised hair, anyway? We have to presume that it’s easier, today, with the rare necessity for a warbird to be painted, to do this “wet-blending” method, than go for masks which will not be needed again for a long time, unlike wartime production, which was definitely not unhurried.
Edgar

Some time ago, I read that the 1940-era German cannon rounds tended to explode on impact, rather than penetrating, then exploding. According to the Spitfire V manual, the IFF set was known as the A.R.I.5000, but I’ve found no reference to that no., in the list of mods, although an “R.3002 w/t equipment” is listed as being introduced from 28-12-40, and I don’t know what that was. In Crecy’s reprint of the Spitfire II Pilot’s Notes, the firing buttons, for the IFF destructor charge, do not appear.
Edgar

According to the Hurricane II manual, incidence is 2 degrees for wing root and wings; can’t find any reference to an amount of washout, just an enigmatic statement that the “Chord at tip ignoring washout” was 3′ 11.25″.
Edgar

The cannon, and ammunition boxes, were on a drop-out pallet, so the Adens had short barrels, and were totally hidden from view. One other thing to watch, and it’s true of all Hunter models; don’t drop the airbrake, if you have the u/c extended. The two items were linked; with u/c down, the brake could not be deployed (unless you had a fairly major hydraulics problem.)
Edgar

I recommend that you get hold of a copy of “Swift Justice,” by Nigel Walpole; I bought mine at a much reduced price last year. The F.R.5 was flown, by two Squadrons, for 5 years, so it was hardly a failure; down low it had few equals, but it took too long to fix its initial problems.
Edgar

Fittings, for crowbars, were installed, on the I & II, from February, 1941, and the crowbars, themselves, were factory-fitted from January, 1942 (mods 320 & 483 apply.) I read (somewhere!) that the positioning of the stencils depended on the factory, and the Pilot’s notes seem to bear this out, with Spitfires generally having two stencils readable up or down, with Seafires having a single stencil readable from the side. At a model show, many years ago, a man (obviously an ex-pilot) commented to me “All these lovely Spitfire models, but, you know, all the time that I was flying I never saw a red crowbar; green, black, or silver, never red.”
Edgar

There’s a photo of PK683, in “Spitfire International,” during its time as a gate guard, but it appears to have been painted in a “representative” Battle of Britain QV-A scheme.
Edgar

Apparently the new owner has to learn how to fly it, first.
Edgar