Burgger me, halleluja, there was a red used!! I’ve (and essentially Peter and Milt) been called a lyer across two threads (despite providing pics of two SAR machines showing orange and red/orange finishes) and been quite viscously argued against about this very issue, but it’s ok now, the experts say so!
Wether it is painted flat or in fluo red/orange matters not one jot, the colour is basically right and it’s more durable to finish the aircraft in flat paint.
God speed everyone here who has actually done something about preserving these aircraft.:)
Blimey you ARE a hard nut to crack! Not sure whether you are just plain stubborn in the face of adversity, argumentative or just colour blind! How many photos do we have to post to try and make you see the difference between ‘DayGlo’ and ‘plain red’ paint? Right, here is my oldest Sea Prince slide of WP313 at Odiham during Farnborough week in September 1968,taken when it was newly painted with Dayglo and as you can see it was more ‘fire orange’ when first applied, but still ‘dayglo’ and not plain red and until you can see the difference, you will remain at odds with Tim and me.
Well said bms44 and Bob. Although ‘Chox’ has not been very tactful is expressing his views, what he says about Sea Princes not being repainted with ‘red’ instead of DayGlo (not ‘dayglow’ Tim!) is quite correct. It is indeed a myth of the memory or misinterpretation of a colour photo that has perpetuated this and only good colour photographic evidence can dispel this in a positive and friendly manner to prove once and for all that Sea Princes had DayGlo on them (and not red paint) right up to their last day of service. This is no disrespect to those that repainted the two aircraft at the Gatwick Aviation Museum as their interpretation of ‘finding red paint’ was no doubt ‘faded red dayglo paint’ and they just used the word ‘red’ as generic. I am pretty sure that due to the nature of DayGlo, it was decided to repaint them with ‘red’ paint for durability against the elements and a certain ‘artistic licence’ was invoked. To prove that these aircraft wore DayGlo to the end, I herewith provide you with good Kodachrome slides of four different Sea Princes, clearly photographed after being withdrawn from use and before anyone had repainted them! Let’s look at the evidence – here are the two Gatwick Museum examples before repaint – clearly the aircraft are light grey and faded Dayglo orange
Next up is WF118 at Staverton in Sept 80 registered G-DACA – still clearly wearing Dayglo orange
Think this is a one-off? Okay here is WM739 now registered G-TACA also clearly wearing Dayglo orange, although without military TLC starting to look patchy!
Still not convinced? Okay yet another one – this time WF125 on the fire dump at Preddanack – very faded Dayglo and not a sign of any ‘red paint’.
Finally, as if you still need convincing, yet another one in the form of WP321 which flew in the 1980s as G-BRFC – now if that’s not very faded DayGlo, I’ll go and suck an orange! Not a drop of ‘Signal Red’ or ‘Cherry Red’ paint in sight!
The Wessex HU.5s were always “Signal Red”
…oh no they weren’t Lee! QED!
The HU.5s only changed from dayglo to Signal Red just before they were retired.
Then of course, there’s the inevitable problem of photographic reproduction – cameras never capture dayglow properly.
Not quite true Tim, it is not the ‘camera’ that doesn’t capture dayglo properly but the ‘film’.
Anything other than Kodachrome is suspect, but having shot Kodachrome slides since 1966, I am very happy that I have dayglo captured accurately every time.
As for FAA aircraft, dayglow was replaced (as has been stated previously) by red paint. Signal Red in fact (although the roundel colour remained Post Office Red. The red paint lasts much longer than dayglow and remains in use to this day (Sea Kings, etc.). However, the application of red didn’t begin until the Sea Princes had been retired. I seem to recall that one or two Princes did receive red paint after retirement (on fire dumps etc.) but in service? Nope. Same applies to the Meteor T7. It was black (or silver) with dayglow (not red) panels.
Quite correct and here is the entire fleet of 750 Squadron put up for the 1975 Culdrose Air Day….all with dayglo!
If anyone is interested in preserving aircraft authentically, then by repainting any aircraft with red paint, when it wore dayglo orange in service is trying to change history and I certainly frown on preservationists that can’t get it right!
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