AVG flying tigers camo colors

[Tom_Kness]

Just telling you what I've read. If they were indeed all from British spec, why the reversed throttle French ones ending up in China? I'm not saying that there were none in the AVG with the SKY-S style underbelly, but I'm not saying all 100 were that shade either. They even mention in several refrences that not all were done in Dark Earth that some used a lighter shade of brown closer to mid-stone, but no one can verify if that was due to fade or if they were actually painted in an analog to Mid-Stone.

[Terry McGrady]

Just telling you what I've read. If they were indeed all from British spec, why the reversed throttle French ones ending up in China? I'm not saying that there were none in the AVG with the SKY-S style underbelly, but I'm not saying all 100 were that shade either. They even mention in several refrences that not all were done in Dark Earth that some used a lighter shade of brown closer to mid-stone, but no one can verify if that was due to fade or if they were actually painted in an analog to Mid-Stone.

It wasn't a Sky type S as on RAF Hurricanes etc but the Dupont equivalent . Oh they were indeed from British Orders paid for by HMG , and there were a number of Telegrams back and forth as the UK Government was furious that 100 A/C it had paid for were to be taken off them and used by the Chinese Airforce .

Osprey Books although good primers are I 've found very little more than that. I just treat them as a starting point and then go do my own research

As for painting it depended much on the mix , weeather etc as to how the end product looked .

One thing for sure however they were all MEANT to be as similar as possible to the then RAF Fighter Scheme

Btw which A/C had the reverse throttle ? Or was it a case of the throttle being incorrectly installed on the particular machine ?

Terry McGrady

[Falkirk1298]

Yup, I've read most of the research and I agree with Dana Bell and Tom Tullis.

It was Colors and Markings of the American Volunteer Group from Osprey that I got the hybrid information from too for the folks asking, as well as that the shoulder harnesses were not installed at the Curtiss Factory, they were done at the by the country taking the aircraft, BUT some AVG had full harness systems installed. Also an intresting note, some of them had the throttles wired in reverse, meaning they were meant for the French.

That is interesting. When were the orders placed for the AVG aircraft, because given that France fell in May 1940 I'd be surprised to find Curtiss still building French spec P-40s for any length of time after that and even more surprised that anyone was paying for them!

John

[catfan]

well i painted my P-40 in the colors found on the DuPont paint chart. and it has changed my mind on how they look. if there was an easier way of posting pictures i would put the chart up. but my model looks great

[Tom_Kness]

Btw which A/C had the reverse throttle ? Or was it a case of the throttle being incorrectly installed on the particular machine ?

I'd guess actual reverse, it was supposed to exist on multiple airframes.

[Terry McGrady]

That is interesting. When were the orders placed for the AVG aircraft, because given that France fell in May 1940 I'd be surprised to find Curtiss still building French spec P-40s for any length of time after that and even more surprised that anyone was paying for them!

John

Hi John , Info I have was that The US was pressing the UK to order 300 Curtis Hawks 87 and spares on 23/12/40 ' for delivery in May , June and July 41, which was done

The Telegram states that the US wanted to allocate a 100 Curtiss Hawk 87 to Chinese from the British Orders , and also provide Greece with 60 A/C as well from the same. You can imagine the forore lol

The French P40 were already in the UK . All the AVG A/C were from the British Contract so how a reverse throttle indicating a French built A/C was included in the Total is a mystery or possibly just mis-information passed down as so often happens

The UK was keen to get the Tomahawk IIB as soon as possible hence the allocation of AVG A/C in dribs and drabs intil the final batch

Cheers

Terry McGrady

[Terry McGrady]

Just telling you what I've read. If they were indeed all from British spec, why the reversed throttle French ones ending up in China? I'm not saying that there were none in the AVG with the SKY-S style underbelly, but I'm not saying all 100 were that shade either. They even mention in several refrences that not all were done in Dark Earth that some used a lighter shade of brown closer to mid-stone, but no one can verify if that was due to fade or if they were actually painted in an analog to Mid-Stone.

The A/C were not fitted with Radios , Wing guns or gunsights which would be fitted to the RAF Tomahawks when they arrived at MUs before allocation to a Squadron.

[Huey Gunner]

Jay- Very nice job on this. Well done!!

[Huey Gunner]

Now that that issue is solved we can move onto something easy, like the color of the area behind the headrest on razorback P-47s.

Regards,

Murph

Cute. Liked that.

[Jay Barfoot]

Jay- Very nice job on this. Well done!!

Thanks Paul,

I appreciate it. I enjoy researching subjects as much if not more than building them. But, as you can tell by this thread (and every other one on this subject), there are differing schools of thought on this: each with their own corroborating evidence. So I just chose colors that I thought best represented what I saw in pics. So, now I have a model on my shelf and can move on to my next subject: an F4F-3 Wake island defender! :D

Jay

[Falkirk1298]

Hi John , Info I have was that The US was pressing the UK to order 300 Curtis Hawks 87 and spares on 23/12/40 ' for delivery in May , June and July 41, which was done

The Telegram states that the US wanted to allocate a 100 Curtiss Hawk 87 to Chinese from the British Orders , and also provide Greece with 60 A/C as well from the same. You can imagine the forore lol

The French P40 were already in the UK . All the AVG A/C were from the British Contract so how a reverse throttle indicating a French built A/C was included in the Total is a mystery or possibly just mis-information passed down as so often happens

The UK was keen to get the Tomahawk IIB as soon as possible hence the allocation of AVG A/C in dribs and drabs intil the final batch

Cheers

Terry McGrady

Thanks Terry, that pretty much ties in with my understanding of the situation. The French airframes were long gone before the AVG aircraft were taken from the production line, but I suppose it's just about possible that airframes destined for Greece might have been modified to conform to French standards given that the Greeks operated a number of French types pre- and during the War, but that's just idle speculation!

As for colours, it's amazing that neither the BPC, on-site inspectors, the A&AEE the Air Ministry or the RAF appeared to notice that all these American aircraft were being delivered in the wrong colour. Maybe there was a secret team of Air Ministry painters at Liverpool docks respraying them!

John

[Jennings]

it's amazing that neither the BPC, on-site inspectors, the A&AEE the Air Ministry or the RAF appeared to notice that all these American aircraft were being delivered in the wrong colour.

Folks, keep in mind that just because there was a British spec, and even if there were Brits on site, the exact shade of the belly of these a/c might not have been their #1 priority. And even if the BPC was there, they probably weren't there all the time inspecting every piece of every airplane. You're probably talking about 2-3 people with priorities all over the United States, trying to see to it that materiel for Britain was delivered most expeditiously so their country didn't lose the war (which they were very close to doing in 1940). In reference to the quote above, they probably just didn't care at that point. If it's a matter of fending off a possible German invasion of your country and being picky about what shade the belly of the airplane is painted, which do you think they picked as their priority?

Just because there was a 'spec' issued means nothing. Even post-war when things weren't crazy, the Brits painted the RCN's Sea Furies in completely wrong colors until the Canadians sent a team to the UK with paint samples.

None of this proves anything, but I once again go back to Dana Bell's work. Dana has gone to great lengths and gotten original, period source documents and paint samples. Of all people on the planet, his opinion is the one I trust on anything related to colors & markings applied to USAAC, USAAF, and USAF aircraft and their related cousins such as the Curtiss export fighters. I've known Dana for many, many years, and I can tell you he is nothing if not fastidious and thorough in his research.

J

Edited January 23, 2010 by Jennings

[Falkirk1298]

The standard and finish of aircraft that the British Government were paying for up front in hard cash was very much a matter of concern for the BPC and their representatives in the American aircraft industry, just as they were a matter of concern for the Resident Technical Officers in domestic factories which, I would suggest, were operating under rather more fraught conditions than those in the US. This isn't a case of "might not have been" or "probably"; these issues were part of a commercial contract and failing to meet them would have resulted in either financial penalties for the suppliers or rectification of the problem at the suppliers expense. It's also worth recalling that the BPC included the redoubtable Sir High Dowding, for whom these types of technical issues were very important. Of course the British wanted the aircraft, but they wanted the aircraft they paid for.

I think that anyone advocating the delivery of directly purchased aircraft in anything other than a very close approximation of the specified colours has to explain why these inappropriate colours were not commented on or rectified at the time by the customer. "There was a war on" doesn't cut it, because UK manufacturers were working in that war zone and they were allowed very little leeway.

John

[Terry McGrady]

Folks, keep in mind that just because there was a British spec, and even if there were Brits on site, the exact shade of the belly of these a/c might not have been their #1 priority. And even if the BPC was there, they probably weren't there all the time inspecting every piece of every airplane. You're probably talking about 2-3 people with priorities all over the United States, trying to see to it that materiel for Britain was delivered most expeditiously so their country didn't lose the war (which they were very close to doing in 1940). In reference to the quote above, they probably just didn't care at that point. If it's a matter of fending off a possible German invasion of your country and being picky about what shade the belly of the airplane is painted, which do you think they picked as their priority?

Just because there was a 'spec' issued means nothing. Even post-war when things weren't crazy, the Brits painted the RCN's Sea Furies in completely wrong colors until the Canadians sent a team to the UK with paint samples.

None of this proves anything, but I once again go back to Dana Bell's work. Dana has gone to great lengths and gotten original, period source documents and paint samples. Of all people on the planet, his opinion is the one I trust on anything related to colors & markings applied to USAAC, USAAF, and USAF aircraft and their related cousins such as the Curtiss export fighters. I've known Dana for many, many years, and I can tell you he is nothing if not fastidious and thorough in his research.

J

Why would Curtis try and match the upper surfaces to RAF colours and not the undersurfaces ? Sky grey was a term used by Bell for the same Dupont colour paint stock number as used by Curtis

[jabow]

Why would Curtis try and match the upper surfaces to RAF colours and not the undersurfaces ? Sky grey was a term used by Bell for the same Dupont colour paint stock number as used by Curtis

You make a very good point. As I said earlier, the few color photos I have show the upper in the standard Green/Dark Earth and the underside a grey color without a hint of the greenish tint of sky. But that only a few aircraft. Another photo shows the dark earth much lighter sand color. Who knows for sure. I really doubt ALL AVG aircraft looked alike or were painted with the same paints.

Again, our UH-1 Hueys, 40 yrs later, looked very different one aircraft to another. Once crews started maintaining them, anything is possible.

Bo Roberts

[LDSModeller]

Here are some extracts written in a book (Britains Wonderful Air Force) written/published

during WWII (1943) just a short time after the MAP saga, not 50-60 years later.

First Britain was not hunting for aircraft because they were losing the War, rather they

set in place contingency plans to aquire more aircraft as a precaution and to

make up a short fall while British Aircraft industry production got fully into gear during

the Battle of Britain

Other countries, Belgium/Netherlands, also placed orders to the US along side

Britain, and to my knowledge got what they ordered and paid for.

This first Excerpt shows technical Specifcations were required, But that

these techincal specs were accepted by US manufacturers and adhered to

A case in point is the British MAP technical spec, for the Brewster 339E Buffalo Engines.

Brewster agreed to engine the RAF Buffalo with Wright R 1820 G-105 engines.

Going into production, Brewster found out there was not enough "New" R 1820 engines

so had Wright re-manufacture ex Airliner engines into the G-105 Spec. Brewster Delivered all 170

aircraft with R 1830 G-105 engines.

One of the technical specs was the use of "Equivalent" colours also in the cockpit area

Note these two shots of a Lockheed Hudson (from MAP ordered RAF Stock ex USA).

That's not standard US Interior Green

These were received by the RNZAF circa 1942

(photos used permissionof NR Mines)

That no one was worried about Technical Spec!! I beg to differ.

British Technical Teams (not 2-3 persons) worked with the US aircraft manufacturers, at the request of

the US, check out this next passage

Just as a side note on Dana Bell.

If according to you Jen, Dana has published that RAF 'Equivalent" lower colours were Grey,

please provide an explanation as to why Dana would "advise" the colouration on this British MAP

ordered Curtiss P 40E (in equivalent colours) with a "Pale Blue" Sky, and not Grey.

These aircraft delived to the RNZAF, from British Stock in the USA, as in this link to RNZAF P 40's

(see opening caption)

http://rnzaf.hobbyvista.com/p40col.html

These aircraft were painted in exact same colours as the early P 40's ordered for the RAF and supplied

to the AVG

Regards

Alan

Edited January 24, 2010 by LDSModeller

[Terry McGrady]

You make a very good point. As I said earlier, the few color photos I have show the upper in the standard Green/Dark Earth and the underside a grey color without a hint of the greenish tint of sky. But that only a few aircraft. Another photo shows the dark earth much lighter sand color. Who knows for sure. I really doubt ALL AVG aircraft looked alike or were painted with the same paints.

Again, our UH-1 Hueys, 40 yrs later, looked very different one aircraft to another. Once crews started maintaining them, anything is possible.

Bo Roberts

Hi Bo ,

I agree there would be differences in shades owing to application , mix etc .Even today the same colour paint even with computer controlled mixing has batch numbers. The basic error is that Sky Grey was used for the undersurfaces .

Now all we need is a decent Tomahawk kit to paint preferably in 48th Scale

Cheers

Terry McGrady

[jabow]

Now all we need is a decent Tomahawk kit to paint preferably in 48th Scale

Cheers

Terry McGrady

Now your talkin'!! Maybe this will get the attention of Tamiya/Hasegawa/Revell/ SOMEBODY!!

Bo Roberts