the the history of the plane reveals 2 things, the sharks mouth was there before the extra sqn markings were applied, ie originally it had a black nose(as seen in the photo) but later in its life, its nose was painted blue and the checked markings on the fuselage were applied
so that makes me think the mouth wasnt the same colour as the nose, as it would have been applied previously at a different station
please bear with me this is going to be a slow build
in this photo the checkers have been applied and reports for the aircrew at the time and shortly after state theses were white and blue, i have no reason to doubt these however looking at the photo i think its a darker blue than airfix have it
i think i can rule out camo underneath as the colours dont match whats on the airframe, so that leaves me with 3 possibilities i think, as Dave suggests they would have used what was available, so..... RED, BLUE or BLACK, now the 'lip' around the edges is widely agreed as black (and i think i read somewhere last night) that this was black according to a aircrew member. looking at the pictures i think the colour may be the same? what do you guys think?
moving on slightly these arrived
reading various sources on the net, there appears to be different opinions about the colours of the typhoon however i plan to use the colours suggested by R C Jones and R L Ward in 'Camouflage & Markings - Hawker Tornado, Typhoon and Tempest - RAF Northern Europe 1936-45'
these are listed as:
Wheel Wells, and Wheel Hubs - Aluminium / bare metal
gun bays, were actually lined with leather to reduce vibration so were a brown colour
Radiator plates, grills and intakes - depending on which factory made the aircraft these were either Aluminium or MSG (medium sea grey)
Cockpits until mid 1942 these were interior green (including the seat) these were subsequently changed to matt black, however odd aircraft were painted golss black and those who were repaired may have had a mixture of the 2 ie green cockpit and black seat or vise versa. however by mid 43 most had been rendered matt black
camo - this used standard temperate camo of 'dark green' (that was the official designation) / ocean grey upper surfaces and MSG lower surfaces
anyway
first up ive sprayed the interior frame work flat aluminum as surgested in my refs
the next step i was planning to use the hairspray technique to add black and weather it, unfortunatley Ruth hasnt got any hairspray i can liberate (and i dont have much call for iit) so instead im going to try Klear, the highlighted areas are Kleared ready for a Nato Black coat
so while that was drying is glued and clamped the first wing spar, the tollerances on this kit are tiny so make sure you clean each bit up as there are some very fine bits of flash
ok the Klear worked, when the NATO Black was dry i rubbed the black with rough piece of sand paper very lightly and got some nice results, the technique needs work but has potential
thats it for today
