| On 19 December 1957, the Air Board decided that that the fern leaf should be changed to silver, and by early 1958 a company had been approached to manufacture two types of decal for a trial application on Vampire tail booms at Ohakea. One type comprised a silver and black fern leaf decal to be placed on the existing red centres, and the other comprised the complete red disc with the silver and black emblem already printed thereon. Trials obviously had to establish some measure of the durability of the materials, and it was June 1958 before a report was made. This recommended the plain fern leaf as the more durable, and action was then taken to procure stocks for the entire RNZAF fleet. The ZS roundel had arrived and was to be the standard for the next 13 years.
Before the ZS was adopted, however, some changes were made to roundel sizes. The cost of decal was relatively high, and the variety of roundal sizes extant would have meant holding a range of seven sizes. Some rationalisation was therfore carried out and the number of of roundel sizes reduced to five by increasing all Dakota roundels from 48 inch to 54 inch, and Hastings wing upper from 72 to 84 inch and lower from 48 to 54 inch. These deliberations and the obtaining of quotes took until the end of 1958, so it was 1959 before the ZS appeared as a standard. At present there is no indication as to the time it took to change over from the ZF.
The ZS was applied in the same alignment as the ZF, but the ‘3+1’ arrangement is something of an enigma. Photographs that clearly show underwing ZS roundels are hard to come by, but two that I have seen show one of each arrangement. In the lead up to the December 1957 decision, the alternatives of all butts facing the trailing edge or the underwing ones matching the serial numbers was discussed, but no record of any decision has been found. It may be noted, however, that official colour scheme drawings issued in 1970 specified the ‘3+1’ arrangement.
In service, the ZS came in for a fair amount of criticism. Ther had been no problems with the prototype roundels on the Vampires, but other aircraft had raised rivet heads. These made the decals difficult to apply and prone to surface breakage. Upper wing roundels were exposed to a lot of bright sunlight, particuarly in the tropics, and deterioration was a major problem. Notwithstanding these problems, a silver fern decal in mint condition tended very much to blend into the red background, making the marking often indistinguishable from the RAF roundel, even at comparitively close quarters. Pressure mounted for a change.
In the images attached we see: Bristol Freighter NZ5912 at Saigon 5 Dec 1961 (With a Shackleton of 205 Sqdn from Changi) The silver fern leaf of the ZS showa up but ironically this could be because the decal has deteriorted. It was the CO of this unit, No 41 Squadron, who eight years later started the final process that was to culminate in the adoption of the Kiwi as the roundel emblem.
In the view of the Hercules NZ 7002 taken on 28 July 1969 it is just discernable in the roundel that the butt of the leaf faces to the right, i.e. the wrong way, the exception from the written instruction again, just to trip people up! |