Westland Lysander underside colour ?

[colin m]

Well as my little 1:72 Lysander is nearing the colour stage, I've hit a bit of a problem. The Matchbox instructions call for the underside of the wings to be painted 'Airframe silver' with the normal camo dark green and dark earth wrapping around the fuselage. I've no problem doing this, but just thought I would search for some confirmation, but can find nothing to suggest that this was correct. The Lysander 'LX L' which lives in Hendon appears to have a much later scheme using Sky on all undersides (fueslage as well). Indeed many museum and flying examples appear to have different schemes than my early Matchbox model.

So, can anyone confirm that early Lysanders (1939 / 40) did indeed have silver undersides ?

Regards

Colin M........

 

[Vaughan]

Hi Colin

Have looked on a few forums and what's coming up is that the underwings were painted in Aluminium Dope this thread from the Britmodeller forum mentions that this might be the case.

Vaughan

 

[tecdes]

Phew bit of a mystery Colin. I have a Revell to make then shelved but did some research. The Revell instructions on the colour issue are downright idiotic.

The Westland Lysander in 3 Sqn RAAF Service P2

This gives a 1940 MK1.

According to the Revell box picture which has the colours & same layout the colour underside is Revell Lake Green 48.

However the above 3 Squadron photos list the wings & underside as sky blue. On the Revell box they also list blue 56 do not know if this is sky blue.

So Colin that probably has helped a bit but also confused. Going to take another look as I need this info. Will pass on anything I find . Grateful if you would do likewise.

Laurie

 

[colin m]

Thanks for your replies gentlemen.

I haven't really found an answer, but the link below shows a few Lysanders and some do appear to have wrap around camo on the fuselage and a light under wing colour, which might just be the elusive silver / aluminium dope !

Regards

Colin M.......

 

[stona]

I'd go with the opinion on the Britmodeller thread. Not my thing really but the silver seems plausible at an early date.

That whole Sky Blue/Blue/Sky thing is a whole other can of worms,particularly on overseas aircraft!

Cheers

Steve

 

[tecdes]

Can of worms is a worthy description Steve.

In fact the whole thing is complicated as I have found after an hour's research.

What date the aircraft was built. Each of the war years the Air ministry seemed to change colours or ideas. What was the aircraft to be used for. Day Night then in these roles overland or sea.

On top of this there were shortages of paint especially blue. So Sky blue & eggshell blue crept in. Then some times 4% yellow was mixed in giving the eggshell greenblue look. No blue then silver was used.

Also where was the Lysander built Britain Canada & I believe the USA. They used the paint they had available.

Then if the camouflage was changed on operations the paint available on site to the ground crew was used.

Predominantly during research sky blue came up.

So take your pick & there is plenty to go for. But fascinating. O yes and that has complicated the thing more. I doubt if what ever colour camouflage you use that any one will be able to contradict you choice.

Try these.

The Westland Lysander in 3 Sqn RAAF Service P2

Antrvm Ratvs - RAF Skies

RAF Sky Blue No.1 - Britmodeller.com

Urban's Color Reference Charts - Part I

Color Reference Charts -* United Kingdom

these last two, which are linked are worth keeping as they do have a lot of information and the references for different paints.

http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/colourcharts/Digital%20RAF%20WW2%20Colours.pdf

Don Color - Camouflages - Aircraft

Don Color - British Aircaft Colors - RAF Day Scheme 11. June 1940

The above linked & give a mass of info.

Westland Lysanders by Yukinobu Nishikawa (Artwork, no scale)

Laurie

 

[tecdes]

This seems a good site as they supply paints for restoration aircraft. Also gives RAL & BSC colour references.

British RAF Aviation Colours of World War Two 1939 1945

Laurie

PS think I will use the eggshell colour on my Lysander. The Revell picture looks good in this scheme.

 

[stona]

"The eggshell colour"???? Talk about confusing. Colin has chosen a period when RAF camouflage was in a state of relatively frequent change,probably not surprising as we're at the begining of the war. I don't think there was ever a time when the underside colour was supposed to be Sky Blue. I think it was supposed to be Sky which is an entirely different worm (in this can of them). I don't know which category the Lysander fell into so I don't know whether they did get painted Sky Blue, various aircraft seem to have been. There was plenty of confusion at the time which has only been amplified by the passage of seventyish years.

Kit instructions and paint manufacturers over the years have called the colour Sky all sorts of strange things,so I'd be very wary of the verbal description of the colour that they give.

I'll stick to the Luftwaffe. It's schemes are really straight forward .....:laughing:

Steve

 

[tecdes]

Found this this morning but accidentally missed it out of my list.

Large Scale Planes - LSP

The directive is below the colour chart part.An air force directive here on blues underside. Do not just read the directive the bit under it is interesting as well.

Laurie

 

[stona]

An interesting link. There is no doubt that the new colour "Sky" and "Sky Blue" were confused. "Duck Egg Blue" certainly refers to Sky. In another document posted by Edgar Brooks there is a clarification that Sky may be described as "Duck Egg Bluish Green" Their spelling!

The LSP article is quite incorrect about the origins of the colour Sky. It's origins are in an earlier colour Camotint which was developed as an experimental colour originally applied to some Blenheims. It has nothing to do with Eau De Nil. Camotint's origins are another story. Here's another document ,also probably via Edgar,if not apologies to whoever,I have no intention of taking the credit for someone else's hard work, showing the link.

Remember that "Type S" refers to the nature of the finish and has nothing to do with the colour.

On the introduction of the new colour Sky by an order of 7 June 1940 there was an immediate shortage prompting another signal,only three days later, from the ministry permitting the continuing use of the previous scheme until sufficient supplies became available. Another document,courtesy of Edgar again.

Unfortunately it seems some units mis-understood the original specifications of the 7th June order. This led to the application of the wrong colour,and there is evidence of Sky Blue being used. Some units appear to have had a stab at mixing their own version of Sky,despite the clarification above,and this may have led to even more confusing results. Whatever went onto these aircraft the INTENTION was for them to be in the new colour SKY.

Cheers

Steve

 

[colin m]

Thank you all for your time and effort in answering my question.

One of your links Laurie, refers to "General reconnaissance land planes, troop carriers and bomber transports" 8th September 1939 and indeed does use the colours dark earth, dark gren and the underside is aluminium. This I believe is close enough to what the people at matchbox knew back in 1973. So the Matchbox instructions seem correct, but what fun trying to confirm them !!

"I'll stick to the Luftwaffe. It's schemes are really straight forward" What else would we expect from the Germans Steve ! Many moons ago, a panel beater (probably a paint technician these days) mentioned that there were about 15 shades of Ford mercury grey. BMW however, only had one shade of Dolphin grey. I think that says it all about quality control !

Regards

Colin M........

 

[colin m]

Steve, our posts crossed,

Thanks for the documents above, so the way I see it is, if they managed to confuse there own people at the time, it's no wonder we have a bit of confusion 70 odd years later !

Regards

Colin M........

 

[tecdes]

Wow cans of worms confusion & all you wanted to do Colin was paint the u/s of your fuselage silver.

During my info collecting came across a book on RAF WW11 Camouflage patterns & colours. I thought this is great get one of those. So looked it up on Ebay & Amazon.

Must be some book as second hand one was over £500 & the other £700. So think I will obtain thro. the library. You must have it in the UK as it came up under two county libraries. Mind you after this confusion suspect it is likely to make the situation worse.

One thing I found was the incredible information out there on the net. A little old Lysander & the net just bulges with information.

Laurie

 

[yak face]

So its going to be aluminium colin, I dont think ill have any doubts when i do my 1/32 one, i intend to do it in the black undersides /grey/green top! Looking forward to seeing yours in the paint, not seen one in the early aluminium underside finish before, cheers tony

 

[stona]

Hi Laurie,one of the problems with reference books is the constant revision they need as new information is unearthed. There are of course some very good books which are many years old. Prien and Rodeicke's Bf109 book must be nearly ten years old but I would regard it as a vital resource for anyone interested in the type. The RAF isn't my special interest but I've collected Luftwaffe reference material for nearly thirty years and the amount known now is staggering compared to when I first started. This is largely due to the hard and unprofitable efforts of relatively few people who have published their material and,to some extent,made it available on the internet. The collapse of the Soviet Union and fall of the Berlin wall also released a lot of information which is still being examined. More sadly old soldiers do fade away and their photo albums,log books etc find their way to auction (or ebay) and this too provides new insights.

The internet is a fantastic resource as long as you remember it is unregulated and is equally as capable of propagating myths and fantasy as it is of disseminating good information.

Anyway Colin,don't forget to show us your "aluminium" bottomed Lysander.

Edit: That book is nearly twenty years on from its first publication. Bl**dy Hell!

Cheers

Steve

 

[tecdes]

Yes you are right Steve.

Having been one of the first to ever connect to the internet on one of the first commodore 64s the internet in those days was quite harmless & the information quite genuine. That is when the 64 behaved itself. Now you have to be very wary & selective.

Agree all the information in books has to be taken with pinches of salt. As far as camouflage is concerned it is an bodies guess. Good fun though to delve.

For instance a scenario.

De Havilland to Sandersons paint. We need sky paint tomorrow the Ministry have changed colour.

Sandersons Sorry run out of that pigment we have not had a directive. But Hawkers sent their lorry yesterday & cleaned us out of sky. But we can probably let you have Sky Blue in 10 weeks time. But we have one sort of near that colour.

De Havilland. Ok

Sandersons. Or we have lots of silver.

De Havilland. Yes we have old stock here which is close we will use that. Thanks.

As far a directives are concerned from the ministry I bet the left hand did not know that the right hand man at the next desk was sending out different info. You would have to read all directives as taking one or two, as we have shown here, will give only very minor indication. What happened between ? Then they did not have facilities for copying the directives at the Aircraft Manufacturers. How many directives reached the man in charge. I bet Bomber Harris just chucked the lot in the basket.

From all accounts not much has changed at the Ministry of Defence nowadays. Although they seem to be on a notable peace mission destroying aircraft rather than building them.

Yak like the black. Seen lots of photos of these in the last day or so. Sinister. Looks impressive. An alternative is the yellow striped livery of the target Lysander. Yucks.

Laurie