Hi Ian, the colour Sky was the same as Camotint and was initially developed for camouflage of photo reconnaissance aircraft as remembered by Sir Neil Wheeler.\ said:I have a suspicion that the 'sky' colour might of arisen from the fact that a good time for raids was early morning/early evening. Sun low in the sky and all that. ("We will raid them at dawn" seems to pop up a lot). The early morning sky can often be seen to have a green tint to it... I wonder if that could have had anything to do with the choice of colour?Ian M
It was because the upper colours were not supposed to overlap the underside colour(s.) The yellow was to make recognition at the same level more positive. The Sky was to make the fighters invisible to bombers flying below, and a splash of yellow wouldn't have helped.\ said:Thanx Interestingly the side roundal has a small section of the outer yellow cut off to follow the line of the sky. Not sure why it was done like this.
The black/white undersides were (supposed to be) overpainted in Sky from June 6th., after Dunkirk; shortage of paint (at first Titanine were the sole suppliers) meant that some Squadrons kept the black/white, while other s tried to mix their own, and there's a possibility that some took Sky Blue (used on drones like the Queen Bee) and Sky to be the same colour.\ said:I see now HU 90 "beige green " is called for the underside. But I would still like to know if they were maybe also white on the underside in France 1940 ???Interestilnly the decals for the side code shows the left side to read "LK-A" but the other side is "A-LK" This I find strange!
Specification was always matt, even when, in 1942, they started to use "smooth" paints, it was always "Smooth, with a matt finish." If you think that it's a contradiction in terms, imagine the headaches for paint manufacturers.\ said:Would the final level of shine be a satin or a fully matt?
That's true but from 6/6/40 undersides of RAF aircraft were to be painted Sky. We know this didn't happen overnight and that there were issues with supply of the new colour and even confusion over what exactly it was supposed to be (evidenced in signals attempting to clarify the issue). Nonetheless at some time after the order to paint Sky undersides most fighters would have had exactly that. This was the Royal Air Force,orders are orders,not options. Sky,like the other camouflage colours was carefully defined and stipulated and too wide a variation from the norm would not have been acceptable.\ said:There is no 100% right and wrong.
bob
For FULL Forum access you can upgrade your account here UPGRADE