Colour of this rudder of Me 262

[skiner]

Hi all

 

I'm painting my Trumpy Me 262 and I Wonder about the colour of the Rudder  (Me 262 BH+HL, WNr.110943 of 3./I./KG (J) 54). If some of you have ideas

Thank you for your help

[BradG]

Your guess will be as good as mine. Pick an appropriate RLM colour and go for it.

[fab]

Hye Skiner

 

http://falkeeins.blogspot.com/2018/06/me-262-kgj54.html

 

If i were you, i would work with the idea or artistic licence that is a field repair or change...in order to deal it in red for the rudder and alu for the fin....

 

Amities 

 

Fab

[Alain Gadbois]

Hi, Brad is right. There's no way to tell except its a light color!

So if its a replacement, I would go for light 76. I doubt it could be natural metal because it is very uniform and the leading edge is wood with tape plus red primer (if I recall correctly). Otherwise white?

Fab thanks for the photos of an interesting camouflage scheme!

[Wegener]

The rudder (as opposed to the vertical tail) doesn’t look that light to me, at least by comparison to the (76?) undersides.  Looks more like a mid tone, comparable to one of the overspray colours.

[32scalelover]

I would guess the vertical tail is 76 and you could do the rudder as red, blue or any other mid range color.

 

Greg

[pvanroy]

The fin would have had a wooden leading edge indeed; this, and the uniform color of the fin do suggest it was painted, a variant of RLM 76 being a possibility, although I wouldn't entirely exclude 02 either, although that would probably look darker. 

 

The fabric-skinned rudder was likely in primer, which would have been a dull, dark red color. This is supported by the fact that there seems to be a small label at the tip of the rudder, which is likely an instruction dealing with the specifics of the Flieglakette to be applied; this would usually be overpainted when camo colors were applied. Further also notice the metal-skinned trim tab, which has broken away and is hanging down the side of the rudder: it has a different, much lighter color than the rest of the rudder, further supporting the notion that the fabric-skinned rudder was left in primer. The trim tab itself may have been left unpainted natural metal, or may have received a coat of 02 or 76.

[ringleheim]

I say paint it red.  It's a color like that, I think.  It's not light, it's not black.  

[Alain Gadbois]

Sorry  I didn't realise the question was about the rudder, not the fin!

So the comment by Pvanroy for a red rudder seems correct to me!

 

Alain

[LSP_Ron]

As a guess, it's either dark green, blue or red but reality is it could be anything.

[GrahamF]

I'm quite used to this subject with studying old Train photos, I'd say definitely red. 

Graham

 

[GrahamF]

1 minute ago, Jennings Heilig said:

The one and only thing you can definitely say about trying to decipher colors from black & white photos is that you definitely can’t decipher colors from black & white photos.

Not if you've got a choice of red or green.

[pvanroy]

I just realized I made a rather stupid mistake in my previous reply, incorrectly assuming that the rudder was fabric-skinned; obviously, in reality, the rudder is metal-skinned, just like the rest of the flying surfaces. This in turn means it would not have received a red protective primer... Meaning that the rudder is actually painted in some RLM color. Considering this, I now feel some solid application of any of the topside camouflage colors is most likely, although I suppose some tactical ID color cannot be excluded. The different color of the trim tab probably indicates it was a replacement - like the fin. 

 

Brown et al. (2010, p. 126) state that "The fin of B3+lH [sic] was replaced by a new one with light grey prime colour", but these authors don't comment on the color of the rudder, and neither do they attempt to reconstruct the camouflage and markings of this machine.

 

Reference:

Brown, D.E., Janda, A., Poruba, T. & Vladař, J. 2010. Luftwaffe over Czech Territory – 1945. Volume III. Messerschmitt Me 262s of KG & KG(J) units. 180 pp. Hradec Králové: JaPo.

Edited December 11, 2019 by pvanroy
typo

[GrahamF]

I think it's more like this one 

http://www.germanaircraftwwii.org/2015/02/me-262-schwalbe-i.html?m=1

Graham